The two talked about their realization that the moon was going to be full that night. They would have to be vigilant that night. Thomas pointed out that if there was another attack before the next full moon, then it couldn’t be a werewolf, it had to be a wolf-man. As the weight of what Thomas was saying sunk in, Evan found himself a bit scared. Then they heard the screams. Two girls, in the backyard, by the pool. The screams would wake the whole neighborhood. It sounded to the boys as if someone were dying.
They rushed downstairs, followed closely by Evan’s dad in a bathrobe. He was already loading his double barrel shotgun on the way down the steps. When they got to the back door, they saw Laura’s friend Candice cowering behind a lawn chair, facing away from the pool. The boys ran outside to her as Mr. Lucas flipped on the lights. They were all shocked to see Candice weeping, covered in blood and gore. Then the three turned their attention to the pool as the traumatized girl pointed in its direction.
The pool had turned crimson with the blood of Evan’s sister. Laura was floating face down, but her head was detached from her body, as was one of her arms. The arm lay on the ground, next to the pool, clutching a grip of dark, grimy fur. Mr. Lucas fell to his knees, weeping. He began to convulse. Thomas knew Evan’s dad had shell shock from being a marine in Vietnam but had never seen one of the man’s episodes. He had a feeling that was what was going on, though he didn’t know. He didn’t ask Evan, he just stood there, staring at Laura’s body parts floating in the pool.
Candice came out from behind the pool chair she was cowering behind. She stumbled, slowly, towards the house. The girl approached with little confidence in her steps and glanced back in the direction of the pool. Upon seeing Laura’s body, she vomited up her dinner, all over the back porch. The girl fainted and collapsed. At that exact moment, Thomas and Evan were shocked to hear the deafening bang of Mr. Lucas’ shotgun. The man had turned the weapon on himself in his grief. He fell to the ground, headless from the lower jaw up. Evan screamed as he looked at Thomas and saw his father’s brains splattered across the other boy’s face.
4
Eight years passed. Eight long and miserable years for Evan. Thomas had endured dozens of counseling sessions, but Evan had been locked away in a mental health facility. Eastern State Hospital, a purgatory of chaos and madness. Hardly the kind of environment that would help the shattered heart and mind of someone who had suffered severe trauma to heal. It was worse than prison, worse than anything he could imagine, except that night in third grade. Evan didn’t know what the world was going to hold in store for him, but he knew that being in there had changed him irrevocably. The night he was released he went to stay with Thomas and his family. He had become less talkative, though more determined than ever to find out who and what the wolf-man was. It had taken everything from him.
Candice quickly became fast friends with Evan. It was only natural, as she had grown quite close to Thomas over the years. What had been an extreme trauma for them all had also been a bonding experience. None of them trusted any of the other kids at school anymore. None of them felt a camaraderie like they did with the others who survived the massacre at the Lucas’s house that night. The three felt like the whole world was against them and the other two were the only people on Earth who understood. Candice was relieved that now there was another person to talk to that had been there, that knew she and Thomas were not crazy.
Despite the years that had passed they were still ostracized. It was what happened in small towns. The same group of kids picked on them through elementary school, junior high, and even high school. Those that didn’t outright disrespect them tended to avoid them altogether. Although they weren’t interested in any of the other kids anymore, all of the other kids were interested in them. It was the way of the world. They were now some sort of anomalies that baffled everyone else. They were the kids who survived a horrible, bloody tragedy. They were the kids who nobody else could understand. To the rest of the world, they would always be a spectacle. A show for the amusement of people who had only a passing, macabre interest in them. ‘The Freaks.’ That is what they began to call themselves, though it was often used by others to describe them as well. Now with Evan back, attending school, it was as if the entire town was reminded of it all over again.
Shane Addison, a mean, dim-witted, dotard that often bullied Evan, even before the third grade, was the leader of the kids who picked on them. Nobody seemed to care that Evan had lost his dad and his sister. They still called him names, beat him up and generally made his life miserable. Thomas was getting in fights every day, half from kids picking on him too, half from taking up for Evan. Shane seemed to get off on causing them all suffering, which made Thomas wonder what his home life was like. Thomas’ paranoia compounded over the years. Shane being an asshole to him and his friends was enough to cause Thomas to consider that he might be the monster.
“Monster or not, Shane Addison is a goddamn beast. What an absolute turd, with the brains of a dead maggot,” Thomas had said to Evan one day, mostly in jest, but also because he still had some bruises from his last run-in with the bully. “I bet that fucker is the monster. Something about him…I dunno. I just know it.”
“It can’t be him, man. He was at Terry Smith’s house the night…” Evan choked on the words. “The night of the tragedy at my house.”
Even Candice didn’t escape the wrath of the other girls. She got her hair pulled on multiple occasions in the girl’s room. Every time she would turn around other girls were whispering and gossiping behind her back. There was even a day when she got punched in the ribs and shoved to the floor for no apparent reason, in the cafeteria, in front of God and everybody. None of the lunch ladies, some of whom knew her mom, even said a word. The big, brutish frame of Cindy Hutton cast a dark shadow over Candice as she lay on the cafeteria floor. Candice would be sore from the blow that sent her down, but hitting the ground itself had knocked the air out of her. As she gasped to breathe, she heard the voice of her adversary.
“My bad. You shouldn’t have been in my way, bitch,” Cindy spat as she glared down at Candice. “You better watch yerself, before you get between me n’ my lunch.”
Principal Maxwell showed up at that moment demanding to know what had happened. None of the lunch ladies said a thing. None of the students said a thing. But Cindy spoke directly at the principal. She was used to conversing with him, and by that point had developed a habit of lying to him right off the bat. He was gullible and thought the best of every student. He always had a healthy dose of skepticism, but Cindy was usually able to talk herself out of trouble unless she was caught red-handed. This time she knew she had to come up with something quick. She had already been to the principal’s office for fighting twice that semester.
“She tried to cut and tripped. It was an accident.”
“Oh, I see. Come see me in my office, Cindy. Somehow I think there is more to it than that,” the principal said, using his slick bald head and thin mustache more than his body language to exude some false air of authority; something he had learned from poorly written, and horribly acted, cop dramas on television.
As the principal talked with Cindy, nobody seemed to notice Candice lying on the floor, gasping for breath. She flailed her arms about in a desperate attempt to get the attention of the principal. Her hand hit his ankle and snapped him out of his conversation and brought her plight to his attention. She wasn’t breathing well at all.
“Call 9-1-1! Call 9-1-1!” Maxwell panicked. “Get this girl some help! She’s not breathing!” The principal lost his calm, not knowing what to do. The school nurse showed up within a minute, oxygen tank in tow. She examined the girl as they waited for paramedics to arrive. She noticed quickly that blood was on Candice’s shirt and one of her ribs had snapped. It was protruding from her side, a compound fracture.
Candice was given oxygen while the paramedics were on the way. When they arrived, they took her to the ambulance immediately. It would be another spectacle that t
he whole school would be able to talk about for months to come. Thomas and Evan had been sitting not more than thirty feet from the entire fiasco. They were waiting for Candice to join them for lunch as she stood in line to get her tray. They knew that Cindy had clobbered Candice deliberately. They knew that their friend had been sent to the hospital by one of the biggest bullies in their school, girl or boy.
The thought occurred to both of them at once, the two boys realizing it nonverbally with a nod. Cindy Hutton had something to do with the beast. She was way bigger than all the other kids in their school, bigger than most adults. She was mean, just plain awful. But most of all, she was very, very hairy. She was covered in a thick, dark body hair that was more than most young men had. If anyone had the traits of a werewolf, it was her. Maybe she wasn’t the one going around killing people, but perhaps she was. After lunch, Thomas and Evan agreed that her family would need to be looked into.
5
Candice returned to school after a few weeks. She had nearly punctured a lung, but thankfully a broken rib was the worst of her problems. Thomas and Evan were happy to have her back. They were stronger as a trio, and they all knew it. Candice seemed more determined than ever. A compound fracture was just what she had needed to get her confidence up. After her ordeal, she became the de facto leader of the group.
Thomas had no qualms with the change in leadership. He was just happy to be back in her company. Thomas had secretly developed quite a crush on her, though he was sure that Evan had as well. He often found himself staring at her auburn hair when the sun shone on it. He would stare a little too intensely into her eyes when they spoke to one another. The young man was upset to find that she seemed to notice nothing of it. In fact, she seemed oblivious to boys altogether. When his aunt was Candice’s age, Thomas recalled her saying, that all she could think of and all she could talk about were boys. Still, because of his own insecurities, Thomas was often left wondering if it were just him, if she were a late bloomer when it came to boys, or if she liked someone else.
Evan said to Thomas one morning, waiting on the bus, “She doesn’t like you, you know?” It was a statement, not a question. “She isn’t interested in either of us. But I know you like her too.”
Thomas didn’t reply to that. He merely absorbed it as the bus pulled up to the stop, skidding slightly in the thin layer of snow that caked the ground. He took his usual seat in the middle of the bus and breathed out a heavy sigh as if all the joy would be stripped from his life from that day forward. Evan plopped down next to him, and the two rode on in silence until Candice got on the bus. That is when Thomas noticed that she gazed a little too long at Shelley, the girl who always sat in the front seat. Candice gave Shelley a big smile. The other girl did not return it. Candice seemed to take it in stride and sat down in front of Thomas and Evan.
“I don’t think that it is a werewolf or a wolf-man guys. I think it is a demon. Or a spirit that can…” Candice looked for the word, but it eluded her.
“Manifest?” Thomas asked.
“That’s not what I was trying to say, but it will do.” Candice returned. “It appeared in my bedroom last night. I think it can walk right through walls. It was just there, in the corner, in the shadows.”
Thomas sat, more or less transfixed. He didn’t even care that the other people on the bus might be listening to their conversation. Evan was entirely overtaken with what she was saying.
“What did it do? What did you do?” he asked frantically. “Did it stink?”
She nodded her head as she said, “I just sat there, too scared to do anything. It came at me, slowly. It smelled so bad, and it had those beady, red eyes. It got right in my face, and I could see the moonlight glisten on its fangs. I got a real good look at it. It wasn’t a wolf at all. It was some weird kind of monster. It smelled so bad you guys! So bad. It made me want to puke. Then it just disappeared. It stepped back into the shadows, and it was just gone.” Candice laid it all out for them. “Werewolves can’t walk through walls. Can they?”
“No, they can’t,” Evan replied plainly as if he knew all the rules to being a werewolf. “I’m way more scared now.” The boy began to shake.
“What do we fight something like that with?” Thomas finally chimed in. “I thought that we should just attack it like it was a werewolf. With silver. But this…this changes everything.”
“Yeah, it does. Everything.” Evan agreed, though he never communicated that he didn’t trust what Candice was saying.
At that moment the bus driver looked into the mirror he had for monitoring the bus. He saw Candice turned around in her seat and yelled at her. “Hey girl, turn around now, or I’ll write you up! You know you gotta be facing forward.”
The three rode the rest of the way to school in silence. Thomas cared more about what Evan had told him than he cared about what Candice had told the two of them. Evan, on the other hand, was trembling uncontrollably, all the way to lunch. He was more afraid than ever. Thomas didn’t blame him. After all, he had lost his family in one night. Either by the beast or as a direct result of it.
At lunch, Candice recounted her entire experience to them. She gave grim details of how it moved, its breath, how it blended in and out of the shadows, and how it had stared her down. She believed that it had been trying to scare her more than anything. She reasoned that if it had wanted to hurt her then it could’ve, and there would have been nothing she could have done about it. The thought of Candice being dismembered like Laura gave Thomas a shiver. Seeing it, Candice decided that it was time to address the elephant in the room.
“Look, I’m not stupid. I can tell you have a crush on me, Thomas. Evan, you ain’t hiding nothing either. But look, we are just friends. We can only ever be just friends. I won’t be giving either of you a first kiss, we won’t be holding hands. Just think of me as one of the guys.” Candice danced around a bit as she addressed them, acting playfully as she crushed their dreams.
“Oh,” the boys said in unison. Both sounding deflated. Who could blame them? They were nerds, outcasts. They had never even had a chance with any of the girls at their school, or even in their town. It was many times worse for Evan who had spent so much time in a mental institution.
“I don’t have to explain it to you all…it’s not like you’d understand,” Candice seemed a bit upset that they weren’t taking the news so well.
And with that, the boys never brought it up again. Thomas noticed that Evan moved on immediately, but he found that he couldn’t get over her himself. He had never had a real girlfriend. Still, he wondered how soft her lips were. He wanted to kiss her so badly that sometimes he found himself biting his lip in her presence.
Something about seeing her as one of the guys made his stomach churn a little every time he imagined fighting the beast. His fantasies invariably ended with the thing tearing them all to pieces. No matter how hard he tried to focus, to see victory over it, he always saw the three of them dead in a pool of blood and gore. This happened so regularly that he would wake in cold sweats from nightmares about it.
Regardless of her feelings towards him, Thomas knew that Candice must be avenged. He planned his attack on Cindy Hutton with Evan one day after school. On a day when Candice had too much homework, and her mother wouldn’t let her hang out. Thomas planned to have Evan distract Cindy, and during lunch, he would slip a laxative into her chocolate milk.
Thomas had heard of it being done before. His older brother, who was away at college and who Thomas barely knew, had once told him of an infamous lemonade stand run by two little ingrates. They put laxatives in the lemonade and made several members of the high school football team shit themselves before a game. Thomas thought that it didn’t add up to what Cindy had put Candice through, but it would be a good start.
Things could not have gone more according to plan. Candice already had her seat, across the cafeteria from Cindy. As Thomas and Evan got their lunch trays, they stopped by Cindy’s table on their way to sit with Candice
. Evan tripped a little, no accident, all part of the plan. He spilled some of his tray right on the girl’s shirt. The large frame of Cindy Hutton jumped up unnaturally fast for someone her size, fists clenched, ready to beat Evan’s ass. Then she became calm and just let it go.
Cindy realized that if she got in another fight that she would be expelled. If she got expelled, then she would fail a grade. As it was, she was a sophomore who should be a junior. She didn’t want to still be a sophomore when she should be at cosmetology school the next year. Being a junior would be bad enough. The girl merely grumbled a bit, didn’t even give Evan a hard stare. During the heat of the moment and the time it took for Cindy to realize everything, Thomas found it quite easy to spike her chocolate milk with the laxative. The two walked to their usual table, breaking out into giggles as they glanced back to see Cindy chugging the milk.
When they got to the table where Candice was sitting, they shared what they had done with her. To their surprise, she was offended by their actions. “Just because she’s a bully doesn’t mean we have to be as bad as she is,” Candice told them. “I’m a better person than that.”
“As bad as she is?” Evan laughed as he spoke, snorting out his nose in derision. “She broke your rib!”
Thomas wondered if she had been through too much. If she had lost her will to fight. Either way, he agreed that what they had done had been wrong. “We’re sorry Candice,” Thomas said as sincerely as possible. “It won’t happen again, but try to lighten up and just enjoy it, ok?”
As they were getting up from their meal and taking their trays to the window where they returned them to the lunch ladies, the three heard the loudest, wettest fart ever, dominate the cafeteria. The entire lunchroom burst out into laughter to see Cindy had shit her pants. Not only had she shit them, but it had been so explosive that hundreds of her fellow students knew immediately. It escaped no one’s attention. The girl burst into tears and ran out, crying. Leaving a trail of brown across the floor as liquid feces poured down her leg. The laughter did not stop for several minutes. The half-hour of lunch that she made it through would be the last half hour of peace Cindy knew at Tate’s Creek High School.
The Beast Page 2