“You wanted monsters.” A form, claws digging deeper into both the front and back of Mike’s shoulder, materialized before him. “You’ve got one.”
It solidified into the shape of a gargoylesque demon, grinning a wide, malicious sneer full of jagged teeth. Spindly, bat-like wings slowly spread wide, darkening the room.
“W-what do you want?” Mike, on his knees, could barely ask the question. He felt the creature’s sharp claws come together, tips meeting deep inside his shoulder.
“I want what you want,” the thing said. It brought its pointed face down to Mike’s, looking him in the eyes. Hot, dank breath washed over Mike as it spoke. “I want you to write.”
Carolyn was bouncing when Mike opened the door. “Tell me you’re not joking,” she said, nearly dancing into his house. “You really finished a screamplay?”
“I had a visit from my muse.”
Carolyn chuckled. “And what did you talk about? Aliens? Dinosaurs?”
“Demons, actually.” Mike shut the door and motioned to the chairs in front of the fireplace.
“Demons? Really? Not your usual style.” Pointing to the sling around his arm, Carolyn asked, “What happened?”
“Ah … I’d guess you’d say I walked into a door.” He smiled wanly. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Sparkling water would be great, thanks. So, you wrote a screamplay about demons?” Carolyn asked, settling into a chair as Mike disappeared into the kitchen.
“Kind of,” he answered when he returned. He carried an open bottle in his good hand and an empty glass in the other. “It’s more about a muse.” He filled the glass and sat the bottle on the table next to Carolyn.
“A muse?” she asked, frowning as she took the drink. “Like the kind that gives writers ideas?”
“Yeah, kind of.” Mike sat on the edge of the other chair and leaned forward.
“You didn’t write another crappy story about a writer, did you? People are sick of that.”
“I revisited the idea about a living writer’s block monster that steals ideas from writers, and I reversed it. You know, like a muse that forces a writer to write.”
“Sounds like something Stephen King already did. I think I liked the idea of a demon better.”
“I haven’t finished yet.”
“Yeah, but where’s the monster in a muse?”
“That was exactly what I asked myself. Where is the monster in a muse? So, I started doing research. Did you know the original myths about the muses are conflicting? It’s kind of like they were different things to different people. And were there nine of them? Or only three? Or … maybe there is only one who pretends to be all of them?”
“Okay. When do we get to the good part? The monster?”
“The interesting thing, to me, was that there were almost no good stories about the muses themselves. They were almost always catalysts in other stories.”
“Right. Hence being a muse.” Carolyn motioned for him to hurry up. “So, again, I ask, when do we get to the good part?”
“The motivation. That’s what makes all good monsters good. You have to understand why they do what they do. Just like any other character.”
“Okay. So why do they do it?” She sipped her water and then looked at her glass and nodded appreciatively.
“They feed on it. It’s what they need.”
“Mike, you lost me,” she took another sip of her drink, savoring it this time. “Maybe we should talk about the demon instead?”
“Oh, I am.” Mike’s eyes were bright now. He stood, pacing the room in his excitement. “How’s the sparkling water?”
“It’s really good. It reminds me of something I can’t quite put my finger on.”
“That’s funny,” Mike said, but there was no humor in his voice. “I thought you’d recognize it right off.”
Carolyn frowned. Mike drew a dagger from inside his sling, and her eyes went wide. She dropped the glass. Before it hit the floor, Mike stabbed her through the shoulder, under the collarbone, pinning her back into the chair.
She screamed.
When she gasped for breath, Mike snarled at her. “Hurts, don’t it?”
Carolyn screamed again.
“Go ahead,” Mike said. “I’ve had horror movies cranked up full volume for the last few days. The neighbors are used to it. They think I’m doing research.” His face tightened. “Come to think of it, I guess I am.” He twisted the knife, and Carolyn screamed again.
“That was probably uncalled for. I’m sorry.” Mike sat on the arm of the chair, where he could keep pressure on the knife in her shoulder. “But you’ve weighed heavily on my mind for a while now. Let me know when you’re ready. I’d like to talk for a few minutes.”
Carolyn’s breath came in quick pants.
“This water was really hard to come by,” Mike said. “I’m sure you can appreciate that.” He turned at the waist to gingerly pick up the bottle with his hand in the sling. “Turns out I had a fan in Delphi who was willing to go all the way up Mount Parnassus as a special favor to me. This came straight from the Castalian Spring. Can you believe it? Would you like some more?” He lifted the bottle to her lips. “I have plenty.”
“Please … please …” Carolyn turned her head away.
“I really wasn’t sure it would work, but I didn’t have a better idea. How do you research a monster so old that no one remembers it’s a monster?”
He sat the bottle back on the table. “Thank god for the internet. And for rabid fans.”
Carolyn’s tears flowed, but her breathing was slowing.
“Are you ready to talk?” he asked. “Okay. Good. First, I didn’t like it when you did this to me.” He wiggled the knife, making her flinch again. “It still hurts like hell. And it was totally uncalled for. It makes it hard to concentrate—and to type. You could have just appeared and scared the crap out of me. I’m sure that would have been just as effective. There was no need for violence.
“I probably would have even welcomed your presence. But you had to threaten me. You had to hurt me!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carolyn’s voice was a scratchy whisper, “but I promise to listen to whatever it is you have to say. Please, just call an ambulance. I don’t feel so well.”
“Of course you don’t, Melete. Or is it Aoide? Or Mneme?”
Carolyn winced. “Please, Mike, I don’t know what you want.”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to tell me anything. I figured it all out on my own.” He leaned slightly to the side, moving to catch her gaze. “I don’t know what other names you have carried over the centuries. I don’t even know which one you are, or how many of you there are, but I know what you are. You’re a muse.”
She met his eyes, agony etched across her face. “You’re delusional! You need help. I need help. Please call an ambulance … please?”
“I also figured out you’re actually some kind of demon. You live off people. Throughout the centuries you, or your sisters—how many of you are there? You inspired people and reveled in being worshiped for it. Just like any other god, you need people to believe in you, to need you, don’t you?”
“Please, Mike … I feel lightheaded …”
“The thing is, you bastards don’t really give people ideas, do you? You just feed off creative people somehow.”
She shifted and made a weak effort to pull away from his blade.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Mike picked up the bottle and splashed water in her face.
She flinched and spat droplets from her lips, falling back into the chair.
“We can do this all night. I’ve got plenty of this stuff. I thought about trying holy water, which would have been much easier to get, but I didn’t want to take any chances.”
“Please, Mike. Please.” Her head swayed, and she looked to the floor. “Please …”
“Why did you change your rules with me, Carolyn? Why didn’t you just move on when my inspiration r
an out? Why did you come into my home and threaten me?” Mike shook as he tried to meet her eyes.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she sobbed.
He twisted the knife, and Carolyn gasped. Her eyes rolled up, and her head fell forward.
Mike lifted her chin and looked into her slack face. “You’re not getting away that easy.”
“I’ve decided to kill you.” Mike’s voice was flat and distant. He sat at the breakfast nook table, staring at his untouched whiskey glass. The cone of light spreading down from the lamp over the table was the only light in the house.
“What? Oh my god. No. Please, Mike. Please.” Carolyn had been duct taped to a chair in the middle of kitchen. Mike placed her there so she couldn’t be seen from the windows. Blood soaked gauze covered the wound in her shoulder.
“I don’t have a choice. Now that I know you for what you are, you would kill me as soon as I untied you. Well, as soon as the effects of the water wore off anyway. I still can’t believe I guessed correctly it would be your weakness. I should be grateful the myths still mention the muses’ affinity to the spring.”
“Mike, I swear to you, you are making a terrible mistake.” Carolyn was out of tears. Slick, dried trails reflected off her cheeks. “You’re out of your damned mind! Help!” Her hoarse screams filled the little house. Mike didn’t bother to silence her.
“I’ve thought about this a lot,” he said when she quieted. “I don’t know that I have it in me to outright kill you. I’m not sure I could live with myself if I did that. Paying you back for my shoulder was unsettling enough. It made me feel … dirty. I don’t think Glen would have approved of it.”
“Oh my god, please, Mike. Let me go.”
“The thing is, you hurt me. You threatened to kill me. But, on some level, I think you really did have my best interests at heart, even if only because they coincided with yours.” He picked up his tumbler and swirled the golden liquid inside of it. “But now I know your secret. Now I am more risk to you than I ever was an asset, I am sure.”
He held the glass up to the light, examining the amber contents.
“I lied to you, you know,” he said. “I haven’t written another screamplay. After you threatened me, all I could think about was you. But I did research like my life depended upon it. Because, you know, you said it did.
“In my research, I found your kind never drank wine.” He chuckled. “That’s part of what gave you away—that and your continued insistence that I write more and spread out into new markets. You were never satisfied, always needing more.”
“For god’s sake, Mike, I’m your agent! That’s what I’m supposed to do!”
“I put my mind to the whole situation, just like a good story doctor would. Who had skin in the game? Who were the main characters?
“Well, there’s me, of course, and there’s the muse who really, really seemed to want me to write. Which made this seem to be all about my writing. So, following that thought, who else cared if I wrote or not? Well, there was Glen. He cared. But he’s gone. I have fans, but fans are fickle. Then there are all those people at the company who won’t work if I don’t write. But then, they seem to be working just fine while I haven’t written. In fact, the company Glen and I created is doing pretty well without me—without us—despite what you said.”
Mike tossed back the whiskey. “And then there’s you, Carolyn.”
“Mike, you need help. You’re not thinking clearly. Please stop this before it’s too late.”
“You wormed your way into the game when I didn’t need an agent. You’ve pushed and pushed for me to write, to sell to other places, to do more …”
He stood and walked over to look down at Carolyn. “Wouldn’t it be something if a shape-shifting, demonic, muse-thing decided to be my agent so that it could be closer to me? So it could control and manipulate what I did for some reason?”
“You’ve gone insane! I’m not a demon, Mike!”
He pulled a green bottle from a metal wine rack on the counter and absently wiped dust off the neck and label. It hadn’t been touched since Glen died.
“I assume the reason your kind doesn’t drink wine has something to do with Dionysus, the god of wine?” He popped the cork and poured a glass. “Something about how drinking wine invites him inside of someone? Allows him to take control of them?”
He held the glass of red wine under her nose.
“I thought,” he continued, “it was strange the muses were so closely associated with Dionysus, the god of wine, yet they themselves never drank wine. While it seems to be fun for us mere mortals—blaming alcohol for our actions—I would guess it’s probably not so exciting for a god to lose control of themselves to another god like that. It’s probably much more literal for you, right?”
“Please, I’m allergic to the sulfites.”
“And I’m allergic to demonic muses who come into my home and threaten my life to try to make me write more!” Mike held the glass to her lips. “Drink up, bitch.”
“No!” Carolyn’s face contorted. She pulled away from the glass, her features flickering, replaced by the craggy, pointed face of the demon.
“Throw yourself to the crows, mortal!” it roared, easily snapping the duct tape binding its wrists and shattering the chair. It rose to tower over Mike. “You should have paid more attention to how long the effects of the water lasted!” A salacious grin split its face. “I’d kill your lover all over again if I could, but I’ll settle for torturing you to death as you have tortured me!”
Mike fell back as it stalked forward. “Y-you killed Glen?”
The demon laughed at the misery twisting across Mike’s face. “He was a distraction. You should have been writing, but you were too busy fawning over his pathetic weaknesses.”
“No!”
“Yes!” The demon lunged.
Mike threw wine into its face as it landed on him.
Mike’s neighbors peeked out windows, many afraid to set foot outside. The screams and crashes coming from his house were no longer explainable by even the best sound system. A few braver souls met in the street, phones in hand, debating calling the police.
A whump reverberated deep in their chests, and the front door to Mike’s house splintered outward. A dark shape, half again larger than a man, sailed out through the flying shards, soaring up into the night sky, roaring with demonic laughter.
A dog yelped convulsively. The bystanders scattered. A gaping hole in Mike’s house revealed furniture upturned, if not outright destroyed, and broken glass everywhere. Mike, bloody, crawled through it all, trying to make his way back into the kitchen.
The winged thing dove from the night sky into the nearest house, shattering through the picture window. Landing, it tore open cabinets and pulled out drawers, searching. Screams echoed inside the house, and the gray, leathery creature threw back its head and laughed.
“Here!” Mike called from his ruined doorway. “Here! I have what you want!” He held four wine bottles, already opened, cradled in his arms as he swayed. Blood, from the slashes across his forehead and his shattered nose, ran down his face, dripping onto the cement steps.
Peeking back through the broken window, the demon saw Mike and beamed toothily. It leaped through the window, wings catching the air, and glided across the street to land in front of Mike.
“An offering!” the creature bellowed. “Wonderful!” It took the bottle Mike held out and guzzled the wine. As the monster drank, the world became eerily silent but for a dog whimpering in a nearby yard. When the bottle was emptied, the demon sighed deeply and tossed it aside.
Mike held out another bottle. “Dionysus?”
“Garnering favor! I approve!” Its voice was the echo of thunder. “Dionysus is but one of the many names I have been called.” It took the second bottle and drank before looking back to Mike. “You honor me. Searching the memories of this creature, I see you are not only responsible for granting me access to this parasite’s mortal shell
, but you are a creator of both tragedy and comedy, mixing them into these monster movies you make. Wonderful.” It drank the rest of the bottle and looked at Mike expectantly.
Mike handed it another bottle. Somewhere in the distance a police siren started.
“I am pleased to take control of this body.” Dionysus, a bottle in each gnarled fist, indicated its form. “It was a disparate creature, garnering power by leeching from my followers. I also see it has done you a wrong. Killing your lover was an unkindness.” The monster swilled more wine. “Fear not, we shall find you a new one! We shall find many!”
Two empty wine bottles flew past Mike and shattered against the house. Dionysus held out a clawed hand and Mike put the fourth bottle into it.
“Dionysus is reborn yet again!” The creature laughed and surveyed the neighborhood.
People hid behind cars and peered through windows up and down the street.
“Come my children! Come!” Dionysus raised his arms and people began walking toward him, jerkily, against their will. “We will celebrate, and you will be reborn free of fetter!”
Dionysus pointed to a woman shambling near the yard with the whining dog. “Fetch the beast!”
The woman, terror on her face, did as he compelled. The dog yelped and bit at her, tearing her arms open, but forced to disregard the injuries, tears streaming down her face, she carried the kicking animal into the semicircle of people forming around Mike’s doorstep.
“Let the feast begin!” Dionysus cried.
Like zombies, people stumbled forward to tear at the dog in the woman’s arms. Its horrid squealing was cut mercifully short. Mike turned and retched as people feasted on raw, fur-covered flesh.
The arriving police car splashed red and blue lights across the scene. The officers stiffly stumbled from the car to join the growing mob.
“Let the orgy begin!” Dionysus commanded.
Compulsion pulled Mike. He took steps he did not want to take. He approached a woman he did not want to approach. “Allow me to fetch more wine!” he cried out.
“Yes! Yes! More wine!” came the guffawing response.
Monsters, Movies & Mayhem Page 19