We Are Monsters (25 page)

Chapter Forty-Nine

Alex had spent many nights wishing he could hear his brother's voice again, but he now would gladly use every wish a genie could grant to make his voice go away.

It was like listening to a drowning snake—the words slithered through severed pipes. They gurgled and bubbled in stagnant blood. Every utterance was a violent choking heard more through the gaping neck than the moving mouth. And every utterance was an admonishment.

Jerry swung his legs out over the bunk; his head teetered precariously on his severed neck. His eyes were clear and focused. And angry. They were leveled on Alex, and they never wavered.

There was a hitch in Jerry's speech, as though he were struggling to suck in air that wasn't there. “You made…”
gurgle, gasp,
“…me…”
gurgle, gasp,
“…imagine him.”
Gurgle, gasp.
“Him!”
Gurgle, gasp.
“And…”
gurgle, gasp,
“…he came.”

Alex was paralyzed in place. Jerry could come off the bunk and kill him and Alex would never move. The stark terror of the moment was beyond fight or flight. He would prefer to be struck dead.

“Who did?” Alex mumbled. “Who did what?”

“You…conjured my…killer.” Jerry dropped to the floor. His head bobbled and nearly toppled backwards, but his spinal column held it in place. “And…now you've…conjured yours.”

“I didn't mean to do anything.”

“You…meant to…get rich. You…meant to…get respect… You didn't…think of…the consequences… It was…at my…expense.”

“No. I thought I had fixed it. I thought that it worked. I wanted you to get better. I wanted to help create a cure.”

“You…didn't know… You did it…any…way.”

“It wasn't just me.” Alex couldn't believe he was having this conversation. If only he could wake up. Or die. “Rachel talked me into it.”

Jerry paused. His neck wound clamped down. The wet flutter of cut and torn tissue must have been a sardonic chuckle. Alex could see the dark humor reach Jerry's eyes.

“Why?” The word came through Jerry's slit neck like a sigh.

The question was too broad. Too all-encompassing. Why what? Why anything? “Why did I test my medicine on you?” Alex asked.

Jerry blinked his eyes rather than risk nodding his head.

And through that plaintive gesture, that innocent desire to know what had caused his death, the ramifications of what Alex had done came crashing down upon him. The finality of his brother's last breath. If he had indeed caused this, then this nightmarish torment was tame compared to what he deserved.

“I did it because…” Alex didn't know what he intended to say next. His mind was blank. He was astonished by his ability to form words, “…because I knew you would let me. Because I knew you wouldn't let me down.

“I wish I could say that I did it to help people. To help
you
. But that would be a lie. I did it because I thought it would make me important. I thought it would make me money and bring happiness, and make Rachel want to fuck me more.

“I thought…” despite himself and the absurdity of the situation, Alex felt a momentary flash of resentment towards his brother, even in this undead, zombie-like state, “…that it would redeem me in Dad's eyes. I thought that if I cured you—if I brought you back—he would finally respect me.

“And I did bring you back. At least I thought I did. He just never got to see it.”

Alex cast his gaze towards the ground and held it there. An act of submission. A plea for sympathy. He did not know whether this undead version of his brother was capable of emotion, but he felt like going for the heartstrings was the best chance that he had. It was either that or try to take Jerry's head off his severed neck. And Alex was far more comfortable using manipulation than physical force.

The silence became unbearable. He began to sag under the weight of his dead brother's stare. Alex glanced up sheepishly. Like a lost and confused little brother. Jerry looked less sympathetic than he had hoped.

They stood staring at each other for half a minute. It was like the old stare-downs they used to have in the backseat of their father's Buick to see which one would be the last to blink. Jerry looked like he could hold out for several centuries. Alex didn't feel like waiting that long.

“So what is this, Jerry? I'm not dreaming, I know that. Am I dead? Is this purgatory? Am I being judged?”

“No.” And yet Jerry's unflinching stare felt like the harsh scrutiny of appraisal. As if he were deciding his brother's worth. Deciding what should be done with him.

“What then? What is this? What are…
you
?”

“You…still have…time.”

Alex looked around. The fear was waning. He felt his body thrumming in the afterglow of adrenaline. “Well, I can't say this is how I want to spend it.”

“That's for…you…to decide.”

Alex squinted at Jerry through one eye, as if trying to see through his charade. “I don't see how I have much say in the matter.”

“You…created this. You…created me. The medicine…opens up…the mind.” Jerry stepped forward. He reached out his right arm, stiff like Frankenstein, and placed it on Alex's shoulder. It was warm and felt oddly comforting.

“You…still have…time to…make it…right.”

There was a flash, like the turning of a channel, and Alex was back in the Sugar Hill conference room. He was still standing in the middle of the room. He opened his mouth to gasp, to speak, to…

And he was back in the cell, staring into his brother's pale, blood-speckled face.

“I am what…happens when…you lie. You can…create any…world you…choose. Choose…another one.”

Then he smiled, one red grin stacked above the other, his lips yawning nearly as wide as his neck. Blood was crusted in between his crooked, unkempt teeth. A reeking stench blew out. It was a mischievous smile that Alex recalled from when they shared a room together. The one Jerry would show right before trapping Alex's head under the bedsheets after he farted.

But then he stopped smiling. Yet his mouth was still opening wider, and wider still. As if it were coming unhinged. As if it meant to engulf him.

“Choose one…” it came out
uuuuzzz uunnghh
, a low, guttural growl heard through the gaping esophagus hole; his maroon mouth yawned wider, “…that doesn't end…like this.”

Jerry shot forward, his open mouth a dark cave with stalactite teeth. Alex shut his eyes and was struck by…

…the silence.

He could feel the spacious, cool air. His nerves were still sizzling in anticipation of his brother's bite, but it never came. Hesitantly, he opened his eyes and nearly collapsed to the floor.

The vacant stares of Bearman and his board, Eli and Angela, looked up at him. He was back in the conference room.

Chapter Fifty

The little girl sat on a padded footstool with her legs curled underneath her, gazing out of a wood-paneled window onto the courtyard beyond.

Her hair was cropped short—like she'd worn it when she was eight—with a shelf of bangs cut straight across her forehead. Her knees were knobby and scraped. Her face was still and solemn. She stared out the window without seeing. Her eyes were cast inward, reflecting a sadness towards the horrid images that played within her mind.

The little girl didn't hear Angela's sobbing. She had not reacted to the opening of the door. Nor did she seem to notice as Angela approached her, taking small, tentative steps, each one leading her farther back in time, to an age that she had all but forgotten. To an age she had blocked out.

Angela stopped behind the little girl—she couldn't think of the girl as herself, although that's who it clearly was. She couldn't fathom that she had once been this person. That she had survived and lived still. How had it happened? She had grown up without even realizing it. The two ages seemed to be separated by a vast chasm, yet were tethered by a tattered rope bridge that swayed precariously over the great divide.

She looked over the little girl's shoulder at the landscape beyond. It was an overgrown garden with a dry and decrepit fountain. In the middle of the fountain stood a forlorn woman holding a moss-covered pitcher containing nothing left to pour. The overcast sky was the same slate grey as the tarnished stone.

Angela held out her hand, letting it hover over the little girl's shoulder. Her fingers trembled. Her chest still heaved. She used a technique that she taught her patients to help quiet their roiling emotions, to stop themselves from crying.

Pausing, she focused her mind. Then drew a deep breath in through her nose, mentally counting her many blessings:
I have a great job, I am smart, I have my health.

She felt a pleasant glow spreading out from her chest as she prepared to exhale through pursed lips, expelling negative energy:
I shed my anger, I shed my hate, I shed my fear.

She felt lighter. Her wavering wails had already reduced themselves to sniffles. Her hand held steady. It was the first time she had ever attempted the coping mechanism on herself. She had always preferred wine.

The little girl stiffened ever so slightly when Angela rested her hand upon her shoulder—just the most subtle tensing of the neck and tilting of her head. Otherwise, she remained oblivious to Angela's presence. She exhaled a shuddering breath, as though revolted by some imaginary sight, and her shoulders slumped.

And now Angela found that her own mind's eye was awakening to a series of images. They were faint, like film projected by a fading bulb, the objects blurred and unfocused. She rested her other hand on the little girl's shoulder and the mental imagery grew brighter, sharper, clearer.

It was like watching a movie, but she knew that wasn't what it was. She was watching a memory. Her own. One that she had buried in the cemetery of her mind many years ago. She somehow knew it was only now resurfacing due to the conduit provided through her younger self, where it was still fresh. Where it was wreaking havoc on her confused and fragile psyche.

Her mother was looking back at her through the partly open front door. She had to leave for work. She had had to take on a second job to cover expenses after Angela's father passed away.

Passed away.
That's what they called it. But it was a poor description for what had happened to her father, who had died from a sudden heart attack so severe it had ruptured his aorta, producing a tearing sensation in his chest, killing him while he clutched at his heart, as though trying to rip it out, his feet scrabbling on the floor, his neck distended, eyes bulged, screaming in agonizing pain as shit exploded from his rear.

Passed away. No, he had died hard.

Maybe her mother had known something was amiss. It was hard to tell. She wore a worried expression anytime she was forced to leave Angela alone. But she wore a distrustful expression close to terror anytime she left Angela in the care of her uncle.

Her uncle, the priest. The sanctimonious saint. The transmitter of God's word and terrestrial savior of souls. It would be natural for such a man to want to watch out for his brother's widow and provide care for his niece after his brother died. But he wasn't like his brother had been.

He did not share the same openness to other ethnicities that her father had. He treated Angela's mother, with her Asian ancestry and heavy accent, like a feeble child with a learning disability. And he had not been around much while her father was alive, only showing up with any regularity after the funeral mass was over, which he had presided over himself. Turning it into a sermon that focused less on her father's life, and more on the precarious nature of the parishioners' souls that
“needed to be saved!”
.

He had even implied some uncertainty over her father's salvation, due to a relaxed attitude towards religion. Due, perhaps, to being influenced by the dubious theology of her mother's native land.

But this was a man of the cloth, not to be questioned. And he was from her late husband's bloodline, which her mother thought she could trust. So, even if the honest voice of instinct may have insisted that there was something off about her brother-in-law, she decided to ignore it. It was just too big—too dangerous—a hunch to indulge.

The look in her eyes, however, fresh in this motion-picture memory, told the full story. She was worried about leaving Angela alone with this man—reverend, relative or otherwise.

Her mother skulked out the door and closed it. There was no sound in the memory, just sight. So the door shut in silence.

Reverend Drake turned and smiled—a bright smile with sparkling eyes that said,
Boy, aren't we about to have some fun!
His name was Glenn, but he insisted that everyone call him by the formal title of his ordained profession. Even family.

The memory began to lose its linear narrative. Inner thoughts and emotive overlays began to intrude on the scene, like some omniscient narrator reading a scrambled script.

The scene soured. It darkened, the colors blanching out and burning inward at the edges. The priest's smile became the sinister sneer of a carnival barker inviting kids to see the horrors within the funhouse. His centipede-like mustache scampered above his lips, millions of whiskered legs marching.

He walked towards her, placing a hand first against her neck, and then sliding it down, tracing it along the arched curve of her lower back, palming her underdeveloped behind, pinching it in jest and giggling as if playing a game. Grabbing it painfully before letting go.

But fear was not the emotion sensed within the memory. Nor dread. Certainly not fun.

It was guilt. It was shame. A confused search to determine what she had done to provoke what was to follow. Some flirtatious gesture? Some suggestion of lust? Or, perhaps, some unspoken agreement between the priest and her mother, permitting it to happen? Because there was no other explanation. No way a holy man, no way her uncle would violate her in such a way. No way her mother would allow it. Unless it was her fault. Unless she deserved it.

Young Angela's mind was under duress. It was
squirming
, trying to cope with what had happened and trying to understand why. Trying to pinpoint some moment that would explain it all away. But, in order to do so, she must live through it again. Let it all play out in this exaggerated reenactment which had been warped by the revolting reality of the act.

She knew the word for it:
INCEST
. And she knew it was a dirty word. And that it made her a dirty girl.

Stained. Tainted. Covered in filth that would never wash away.

Angela felt her younger self cringe under her hands, trying to escape from the memory of her uncle undressing her. Of his hands caressing the prepubescent buds growing from her breasts.

And, at the same time, trying to dissect it to figure out what, if anything, she could have done differently. She had permitted it. But had she encouraged it? She shivered. She screamed in silent frustration.

No,
Angela thought, and she heard her voice enter into the mind of the memory. It sounded calm and comforting. It was the voice of compassion Eli had taught her to use when consoling patients.
You didn't encourage it. You didn't bring it on yourself.

She began to run her fingers through the little girl's hair, letting the silky strands flutter back in place. She combed the girl's hair back from the sides, pulling it into the small nub of a ponytail, while she stroked the soft skin exposed on her neck.

It was not your fault. He was disturbed. He was sick. There is nothing you could have done differently. If you had fought, it would have only made it worse.

The darkness of the memory began to diminish. The point of view zoomed in on her uncle. It showed his feverish eyes, his manic, desperate gaze—windows into a mind at war with itself. A mind disgusted by its own depravity. A weakness of constitution unable to overcome its perverted urges. A self-loathing deeper and more despairing than anything Angela had ever experienced. Even in her most compromised moments. Even when she felt she could fall no farther.

He needed help, but there was no one to help him. Even if help meant separation from society. Even if help meant death. He would have preferred those things to being who he was.

His face was contorted in an animalistic expression of hunger, of predatory lust. But it also showed anger and revulsion and shame, all directed towards himself. It was an act of self-flagellation, as much as sexual gratification. He knew Scripture well enough to believe that he was damning his soul. And still he couldn't stop.

You were his victim, and there's nothing that can be done to minimize how awful that was. But he was a victim too. Of faulty genetics, of a damaged brain. He was broken and needed to be either fixed or destroyed.

But you, little Angela, you did nothing wrong. You were a strong, brave girl. You survived. And look at us now! We've gone on to help fix the broken people. We have so much to be thankful for. You'll get over this. You'll move past it.

And what, replace it with booze, blackouts and one-night stands? The connection was so blatantly obvious it was professionally embarrassing that she had never made it before. Well, she had, but in a more general, abstract sort of way. She had never considered that she was still punishing herself over something that was not her fault. That she still harbored all the guilt and the shame.

I will not remain a victim any longer. It's time to move on.

The memory began to fade, losing its immediate potency. It fast-tracked to her mother returning home, exhausted from a sixteen-hour workday. But still making the time to check in on Angela. To make her something to eat. To lay her down to sleep. Only then shutting her own eyes for the few hours she had until it was time to wake up and do it all over again. All for her little girl. All for Angela.

The little girl stirred on the footstool. Outside, a golden shaft of sunlight had penetrated through the clouds and was spotlighting the statue of the lady standing in the empty fountain. It made her glow.

Angela could see the little girl's face reflected in the windowpane. Her eyebrows were still knitted together in deep concentration, but there was a one-sided smile on her lips. Almost a smug, little grin. The girl was smart. She was tough. Angela had a feeling she would make it just fine.

She leaned down and wrapped her arms around the little girl, resting her head against the small crook of her shoulder.

I love you.

And she heard the voice of a young little girl say “I love you too”.

Tears blurred her eyes. She wiped them away as she stood, peering out through the window again at the lady in the fountain. Wait, she had seen this before. Of course she had. It was the courtyard back at Sugar Hill.