Here Be Monsters - an Anthology of Monster Tales (4 page)

But that didn’t make it feel any less wrong.

He placed the photograph in Lucifera’s hand. Then, he took a deep breath and grabbed the brick. Without stopping, he shoved it into the final opening, locking Barry in the dark with his screams.

He stared at his trembling hands. “Now I’m a monster, too.”

Lucifera appeared in front of him and touched the side of his face. “No, Tim. As I said, your conscience is clear. Now let me remove the burden of this unpleasant memory so you can focus on your new job.”

Before he could protest, she bit into his neck. Her presence invaded his mind, erasing and twisting his memories. Pain and fear were the last things he felt before everything went black.

*****

Tim awoke in his apartment with a throbbing headache. He removed an empty liquor bottle from the night stand and stared at his alarm clock until it came into focus.

Saturday? The last day he could remember was a Monday.

Slowly, things crept back to him. Barry had wanted him to do something.

No. That wasn’t right. Barry had quit with no notice and moved down to
Costa Rica
to work for some acquaintance of his. It all seemed so vague and fuzzy, but that was what he remembered.

The idea of never seeing or hearing from Barry again didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. Then he felt a tinge of guilt, but another dreamlike memory drove it away. He had been chosen to take over Barry’s old position and given one hell of a promotion bonus.

He picked up a black envelope from his nightstand. It was a very nice letter from the CEO, Lucille Romana, thanking him for his loyal service and congratulating him on the new position.

“Lucille Romana,” Tim said. “I hope I get to meet her one day so I can thank her in person.”

Tim put the letter aside and forced himself to get out of bed. His headache was getting worse. He knew he had to get some coffee—otherwise the lack of caffeine would make him a real monster.

S.M. Reine

©2011

All rights reserved.

There was something wrong with her.

I could tell from the beginning. It was something I
knew
with the same certainty that I knew we were not of the same blood. We had the same ink-dark hair and bone-white flesh, but the resemblance ended at our skin, no matter what Father said.

It's easy to recall the day she came to us.
Take care of her
, Father told me.
She's fragile
. And then he put her in my arms, this new pink-skinned baby, and I looked into her little baby-black eyes and wanted to kill her. I put my hand on the paperweight at the desk, but Father was looking, so I set it down and gave her back.

I regretted letting that tender skull remain intact.

She had no interest in the mobiles dangling above her crib. They were bright shiny things with pink ponies and blue bunnies that whirled and twirled and reflected fragments of sun on the walls. Father gave her toys that glowed and pulsed like a heartbeat during the dark hours of the night so she wouldn’t feel lonely or scared, but they would not shine for her. She seemed to prefer the darkness anyway.

I found her standing in her crib one night, staring at the sliver of the waxing moon through filmy pink curtains. Her eyes rolled over and she looked at me with a toothless smile. She
smiled
. It was a dark smile, an ancient smile, and I thought again of that paperweight and the soft spot on her skull.

It was worse when she crawled. She always wanted to be at my side. She came to my feet while I sat in the rocking chair, her hair a puffy black cloud around her face, and opened her mouth to grin that foul grin with two sharp little teeth. I didn't pick her up, and she never cried.

She became as quiet a toddler as she was a quiet baby. Father dressed her in fluffy pink skirts with white trim. I sat her in the sandbox in our back yard and she didn’t want to play. She stared unblinkingly at the sun as I sat in the shade. I wanted her delicate skin to burn. I wanted to watch it turn red and crisp and boil.

I left her on the hot sand and hid in my room so I wouldn’t hear her cries as she scorched, but she did not cry and she did not burn. I brought her inside before Father came home, and she pressed wet smiles on my neck. Her skin wasn't even warm.

I watched her as she grew. I always liked children, but I never liked her, and when I held her I wanted to put one hand on her small chin and another on the back of her head and twist hard enough to hear the snap. I would do it later, I thought, because she was too small now and there was still time. Later. Always later.

It wasn't long before she dressed herself. Father insisted I needed to take her shopping, and she selected her clothing. It was all black or blood red, but she never touched anything gold. For her birthdays I got her a little necklace, bright pure gold, and I put it on her. She screamed, and with her short nails clawed at her throat and Father made me take it off.

She still liked me. She sat on my lap when I read during the day, and knelt by the computer when I tried to ignore her, her large dark eyes just staring at me. And smiling.

She didn't go to school, nor did she learn from Father. She taught herself, reading what Father told her to read and writing what Father told her to write, but her real education came from the things she did when nobody watched.

I found the first one when she was seven: a little mockingbird pinned to the bark of a tree with one of her ruby-encrusted hairpins. Dried blood caked its feathers like stigmata. It was still twitching when I took it down. I held the bird like I held her, and watched the blood flow over my hands until it finally stopped moving. I buried it under her childhood sandbox.

She sat by me while we ate Father’s lasagna at dinner that night. Father lectured us about his work that day, and she nodded along as though she was listening, but her eyes stayed on me. She smiled like she had when she was a baby. Her teeth were white and her lips were dark red. It looked like the blood of the jay.

Later. I'd have time to kill her later. I would pin her hands to the tree and slit her throat quickly. I'd wait until she bled dry from her hands before the actual cutting, and then I would bury her somewhere under the moon she admired so much. Her pale dark eyes would close, and she would never look at me again. She would not suffer like the bird had.

She grew curves, her breasts before her hips, and her cheeks hollowed out. Her dark eyes grew darker, her black hair blacker, and still she loved me. I found the cat under my bedroom window, stomach slit from its genitalia to its chin with its innards artfully arranged amongst the flowers. They were concentric circles, perfect and bloody.

Boys asked her out. Girls asked her out. She never said yes, and she spent her nights with me while I watched television, while I cooked and ate dinner, while I cleaned the house. She didn't often speak. I saw the words in her eyes and her movements. She seduced me with her silence in its infuriating grace, and I wondered if she seduced the animals with her sweet princess charms before the slaughtered.

She finally grew to the age I'd been when I'd first found the bird. She dressed like a slut, the little tease. Children came to our door asking if I had seen their lost dog, and I said no. But I knew she had buried it by the river. She took her kills further away as she got bigger and could walk further.

Father died that year. The police didn't know what happened to him. I found him in the forest, his skin eaten away by animals and his skull bleached by the golden sun.

Later would be too late.

I studied her long legs and slim waist and sturdy arms. She could match me now. She was too fast, too strong. I'd have to do what I had to do while she slept.

I went into her room, where she slept on her back tangled in silk sheets. Her bare breasts reflected the moonlight splashed through the window. I thought of the grinning baby, the grinning toddler, and even in sleep I thought she grinned at me.

She didn't wake when I took the paring knife and the nails from the kitchen. She didn't wake when I straddled her hips, looking down at her blank face. Her black hair made soft circles around her head, like the cat's guts. I would slit her open like she had slit open the cat, and crucify her like she crucified the bird, and bury my knife in her stomach like she did to Father.

She finally roused when I nailed her palms to her bedside tables. Her eyes were wide, afraid, but I put my hand over her mouth to keep her silent. She tried to bite me when I shifted to smooth my hand over her sweaty brow.

I knew then that I had always waited—later, always later—because I loved her.

It's for the best,
I told her.

She shook her head.
No.

I pressed the knife into her blossoming vulva, where black curls opened to the slit between her thighs, and sawed it up her gut and stomach and chest. I had to press harder on her breastbone, but it eventually cracked, and I slipped the blade along her cheeks to give her a final bloody smile.

Her eyes were open, but she didn't shake her head or try to fight anymore. Blood dried on her hands like it did on the mockingbird’s wings. I could see the way she had cradled it lovingly while she tacked down its limbs. I could imagine how she spread the cat’s stomach and intestines in the flower bush. I could even see how Father had died, how he had begged, and how he asked for her to spare me. Or had he begged me to spare her? It was all too confusing. I couldn’t tell anymore.

It's for the best,
I wanted to tell her again. But now she was gone.

There was something wrong with her.

India Drummond

© 2011

All rights reserved.

Edited by M.T. Murphy

Krel went to his private gallery to think. He walked among the delicate hovering globes and tapped the thin glass with an extended claw. The souls within shimmered as a perfect tone echoed off the stone walls. Each orb would produce a different note, dependent not on its shell, but the timbre of the human life within.

As he stood in the centre of the chamber, he recalled the taking of each one. The only pleasure that exceeded visiting his collection was expanding it by harvesting new human ore.

The newest of his collection still struggled within their confinement. He stroked the cool glass with the dark green flesh of his palm and heard the magical echo of two voices. A smile played across his gnarled lips. When he had coaxed the female’s essence from her body, another tiny flicker came with it. She’d been with child. The challenge had delighted him: how to encase two as one, and yet still keep the casing thin and the sound clear. It had been tried before, always with disastrous outcomes. But no two souls were as intimately connected as a mother and child, and his triumphant artistry had stunned everyone who’d seen it. They swirled together, blending their blue and golden light, then flew apart as though dancing. It filled him with pure delight. He had considered giving this one to the clan warchief, but found he could not part with the pair.

His thoughts of the warchief reminded Krel of the summons he’d received. The hour had come to attend his patron. He turned toward the door, bracing himself for the meeting ahead. His heavy boots thudded against the stone floor as he strode with purpose to the stairwell.

His thoughts lingered on his collection, distracting him to the point of obsession. He nearly collided with his daughter at the top of the stairs.

Krel’s heart swelled with pride at how beautiful Ruygret had become. Her black hair hung over her shoulder in a braid that reached her waist, making her the spitting image of her mother. Krel thought of his lost mate often since her death in the Battle of Curtol six years before.

“Father,” Ruygret said. “I want to bring my new pet to live in my rooms, but Hyug won’t allow it in the house without your consent.”

Krel scowled. “Another? But what about Crush?”

Ruygret met his eyes fiercely. “My wolf died nearly a year ago, father. I told you. The new pet needs more attention. It gets bored tied up outside all day.”

A pang of remorse shot through him. He’d neglected Ruygret since her mother died, but his work had helped fill the gap left by his wife’s death. His collection had grown to number in the hundreds. If he sold it, he could retire in comfort and buy his daughter a legion of her own bonded warriors. But he knew he couldn’t part with any of his creations. He found it difficult enough to offer the required occasional tribute to the warchief.