Monster

by Christopher Pike

  “He wants you to get out,” the woman said, getting up in a hurry. She took Angela by the arm and pulled her to her feet. “He wants you to get out now and never come back. You've upset him.”

  “But I have to talk to him some more,” Angela protested. The woman wouldn't let go of her. Angela was literally being dragged out the door, but she was able to shake free and took a step back towards the old man, who continued to watch her as if she had the plague. “What's wrong with me?” she demanded. “Why are you treating me this way?”

  She couldn't believe his response, especially after the way he had carried on about the word. “KAtuu,” he said.

  “You must leave now,” the woman ordered.

  “I am not KAtuu!” Angela screamed. “I am a teenage girl. Why do you accuse me of that when I come to you for help?”

  “Get out of here,” the woman said, grabbing at her hand again.

  “Leave me alone,” Angela yelled, shaking her off. She took another step towards Shining Feather. Even though he saw her as evil, he was not afraid of her. “Why do call me KAtuu?” she demanded. “I've hurt no one.”

  “What want?” the old man asked, and though it was broken English, his question was clear.

  “I want to know if this thing is real,” Angela, said. “And if it is real, I want to know how to stop it before it spreads.”

  Shining Feather reached up and removed a small gold chain from around his neck. He held it out to her. At the end of the chain was a tiny golden amulet of a hanging bat, which had been hidden beneath his shirt, Angela took it and studied it closely. The bat was missing its head.

  Shining Feather nodded. “KAtuu.”

  Angela frowned. “What happened to its head?”

  “Wear,” he said.

  “Around my neck? But what good will that do?” She was desperate. “What am I supposed to do?”

  The man made a slashing motion at his neck. “Kill them,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “The hungry ones,” he said.

  “I have to cut off their heads?” she asked.

  “Kill them,” he repeated.

  “What about me?” she asked. “Am I infected, too?”

  He glanced out the window in the direction of the setting sun. The bloated orange globe was already halfway over the side of the Earth, falling into night-time. The room had begun to darken, to grow chilly. Angela felt a shiver go through the length of her body as the old man turned his eyes back on her.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  She nodded weakly. She was starving right now. “All the time.”

  “The water. The blood.” He shook his head sadly and muttered something in Manton. Angela gestured to the woman.

  “What did he say?” Angela asked.

  “You swam too deep,” the woman said.

  “But I have never swum in the lake. It's too cold.”

  Shining Feather lowered his head and spoke in Manton.

  “What?' Angela said.

  “Your blood is as cold as the lake,” the woman translated.

  Angela could feel her heart pounding. But what flowed through her veins she no longer knew. “I think I will leave,” she said.

  The woman was spooked. “I think you had better.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  On the way home Angela found a grocery store that took personal cheques so she didn't have to locate an ATM. She bought all kinds of food, it was true, but who was she fooling? She purchased more red meat than she and her grandfather ordinarily ate in a month. Big steaks, fat steaks. She asked the man in the meat department if he had any cattle in the back, and he didn't laugh because she wasn't laughing when she asked him. She almost cried when the cashier asked if she was expecting company.

  “Yes,” Angela said. “They're from out of town.”

  Plastic was waiting for her at the front door when she got home. She was whining. Angela had forgotten to feed her that morning. Angela searched for a can of dog food but couldn't find any. She ended up tossing Plastic a raw steak on her upstairs balcony that overlooked the lake. The dog chewed away happily.

  Angela was cooking herself a steak when the front door opened and in walked Jim Kline, star quarterback, heavy water drinker, Batman himself. He still had his head on his shoulders. He looked up at her in the kitchen, a level above, and nodded. It was dark, and the only light she had on was a small lamp on a table in the living-room beside where he stood. It didn't seem to bother him. Her steak sizzled in the hot pan.

  “Hello, Angie,” he said. “Am I early?”

  “No. Come in, I was just making dinner. Are you hungry?”

  “I’m starving,” he said.

  So, my darling boy. Are you a monster? Do you eat people? Do you want to eat me? Do I have to kill you? Are you from another planet? Are you evil? What do you want to do tonight? Kiss me? Love me? Make me more like yourself? Ah, my darling boy. Isn't that why you asked me out? Isn't that why you came to this world? To consume all the pretty young babes? And make them more evil than they already are.

  “Should we eat here?” Angela asked when she had steaks sizzling in the black pan. Jim sat silently at the kitchen table, watching her in the dark.

  “At the oil wells,” he said.

  “You want to hike up there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine.” She knew why she hadn't gone for her father's shotgun. First of all, he didn't have one. Second, there was a part of her that was in love with the dark side. There always had been, really – it was probably the same in all people. Jim both repelled and attracted her. His manner was cold. He was making no pretence of loving her tonight. He probably realized it was unnecessary. The baptism – whatever he had done to her – was complete, and she was already damned – at least from his point of view. There were also the things Mary had told her about him. Angela still couldn't say she believed Mary, but she didn't disbelieve her, either. That was saying a lot. If Jim wasn't a monster, he was far from being a normal jock.

  “I want to eat and look down at the lake,” he said.

  “It sounds romantic,” she replied. She wasn't being sarcastic because she truly was looking forward to being with him in the worst way. It was as if her mind were operating on two levels. He was bad, but he was so bad he looked good. She was dying for him to kiss her, to touch her. She craved his fingers on her as much as she craved juicy steaks. But he wasn't horny for her — he just sat there staring at her.

  “You look pretty tonight,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said. She hadn't meant for him to come. She had planned to keep her promise to Kevin, to herself, intending to call him to say she wasn't feeling well. But she had got home late and had had to make herself something to eat – and then he had just walked in...

  “What did you do today?” Jim asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you see Mary?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing,” she said. Then there was the feeling that she needed him. Her body was changing. A doctor wouldn't understand how. But Jim knew; she could see subtle signs of change in him, too. His right hand rested on the kitchen table. His fingernails — as if they had been caught in something heavy – were all black. He tapped them lightly on the wooden table-top and sent rhythmic echoes through the silent house.

  “Is the steak almost done?” he asked.

  “I just put it on.”

  “It doesn't matter.”

  “I guess not.” She turned off the flame. “Let's go. I'll put the food in a sack.”

  But everything she thought about Jim and her reaction to him was also absurd. She hadn't yet forgotten that she was a human being. She certainly wasn't ready to kill anybody. She would die before she did that. In the bathroom, before leaving the house, she put Shining Feather's amulet on under her shirt. She didn't know what protection it could afford her. Maybe none. But she kept it close to her skin nevertheless. It reminded her of the old man’s
command:

  “Kill them – the hungry ones.”

  Jim didn't say a word as they hiked up to the oil wells, and she didn't mind. It was all she could do to catch her breath as she tried to keep up with him. He carried the sack of food, though; the smell of it pulled her like a leash on a puppy. She had tossed a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine in with the steaks.

  The wells were tall, insect-like structures. There were only six that she could see, not the twelve he had mentioned. They ploughed the earth with tireless indifference, sucking it dry of its natural resources. Yet in the light of the moon they were sensual. The silver light gleamed on the oily tubing. Up and down, in and out – pumping. Her thoughts reeled in lustful circles. If Jim had tried to undress her at that moment, she would have wished for scissors to help him.

  They sat at the concrete footing of one of the wells, the valley and lake stretched splendidly out beneath them. They reached for their food. Jim ate and drank some of everything, but Angela just wanted her steak – extra rare, if it could be called that. She ate with her hands, and that made it taste all the better.

  “The Lake is round,” Jim said when they were done eating. He was right, of course – the water appeared a perfect circle when seen from above. From space, in the moonlight, it probably appeared to be a single pale eye. A cloud could cross the sky and make the eye blink. Angela considered telling Jim her nightmare, but dismissed the idea. She didn't know what he knew of her suspicions. Better to keep it that way.

  In case she had to kill him after she loved him.

  But she was no Mary. She still couldn't imagine killing anybody.

  “I hear it was formed by a meteor,” she said.

  “It was. A hundred thousand years ago.”

  She turned to him. “How did you know that?”

  He shrugged. “It's known. Can you imagine it? A hunk of rock comes hurtling out of the sky and crashes here. In a fraction of a second the impact liberates more energy than a thousand nuclear warheads. This valley is formed and for days on end it is a valley of fire. Of molten rock melting deeper and deeper into the earth, becoming a part of it. Cooling finally, and leaving a bowl for the water to gather in.”

  “Sethia,” she said. His description evoked powerful images. It was almost as if he had been there to witness the coming of the meteor.

  He frowned. “I don't know that name.”

  “That's what the Manton called Point Lake.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “I don't know,” she said. “How's your arm?” He had on a long-sleeved shirt. She couldn't remember if he had cut the right or left arm. She wondered if he could.

  “It’s better,” he said. “Is it bandaged?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  “No.” He stood suddenly. “Let's go.”

  “Where?”

  “Swimming.”

  “Should you go swimming with your cut?”

  “I don't care,” he said.

  She felt fear. “The water's cold.”

  He stuck out his arm. “You'll be hot by the time you walk back down.”

  She was sweating by the time they reached her house. She didn't know what was going to happen next. The fact was, a potential KAtuu was asking her to go swimming in a Bath of Blood. Of course, people swam in the lake all summer, and none of them ate their neighbours. She wondered if it was possible that she would look back on days when she was thirty years old and wonder if hadn't been taking drugs. She certainly had thrown logic to the wind. She was close to believing in monsters, and at the same time she wanted to sleep with one.

  Jim kissed her the moment they stepped inside her house.

  He kept on kissing her.

  It was better than the previous night. He was better. He was a hunk of male meat wrapped around the deepest nerve in her body. It was cool, she thought. He could eat her when he was done. As long as she got to watch. He ran his hands over the front of her blouse, and she moaned with pleasure and pain, never realizing before how close two could be. She wanted him so bad it hurt.

  He led her deeper into the house. Up to her bedroom. But they didn't stop there – more’s the pity, she thought. He opened the door on to the balcony. Plastic looked up from her white steak bone and dashed inside the house. Jim stepped out and surveyed the calm lake. The air was even warmer than it had been the night before, silent as a tomb.

  “Let's swim,” he said.

  Don't you want to exercise another way?

  “How deep is this lake?” she asked aloud.

  “Deeper than you imagine.” He pulled off his shirt. He was built like Hercules. His right arm was bandaged. He flashed a faint smile – his first smile of the evening – when he saw her eyes dart to the white gauze. “Do you still have your cold?” he asked.

  She hesitated. “No.”

  He began to take off his trousers. “Can you swim?”

  “I can swim,” she said. She thought about the amulet round her neck. She didn't want him to see it. “But I have to go to the bathroom first.”

  “Go.” He was practically naked.

  She ran inside to the bathroom and pulled off the gold bat with no head. She couldn't imagine what it symbolized; the KAtuu surely were not bats. They were supposed to be alien monsters. She stuffed it in the medicine cabinet.

  She heard a loud splash. He had already dived in. This was her chance. She could run out to her car and drive away. She could go over to Kevin's house and huddle in front of his TV and watch a rented horror movie and eat popcorn and have a nice normal safe Saturday night. But something kept her where she was, and she had another insight into what it was. She was horny as hell, sure, and who really believed in monsters? But if there was an evil force at work there, then she couldn't simply run away and pretend it didn't exist.

  “What am I supposed to do? You tell me that Jim's walking death on the loose and I'm just supposed to sit back and see if he kills somebody? You should be happy I went out with him. I'm carrying on your research.”

  She had yelled that at Mary spontaneously, but it must have come from deep inside. She had to get close to Jim to see what he was. It was the only way she'd be able to make up her mind what to do.

  Angela did not reach for a bathing suit as she walked back to the balcony. It was research, after all.

  Jim was a hundred feet out. He waved as she stepped out into the moonlight.

  “Come on,” he called

  Sethia. Bath of Blood. KAtuu. Cold as the lake.

  “Coming,” Angela whispered. She slipped out of her clothes and let them fall on the boards. The night air touched her where she was seldom seen. She crept to the edge and peered down. The water glittered like a million-faceted diamond. She did not know how deep it was at the edge. She didn't want to break her neck and end up paralyzed like poor Fred Keith.

  “Hurry,” Jim shouted.

  “OK,” she said, mostly to herself. It would be OK.

  She jumped in.

  The shock was so complete she didn't register it at first. Her feet sank down without touching the bottom. She kicked up vigorously and broke the surface. Then the cold hit her; she could have landed on an iceberg.

  “Ah!” she yelled.

  Far out in the ice pool Jim snorted. “Swim!” he called. “It will warm you up.”

  He was wrong about that. The further she swam from shore, the colder she got. She suspected she was losing body heat faster than any form of exercise would generate it. There was no way she could stay in more than a minute.

  But then Jim met her and pulled her towards him and kissed her again. She could feel his body against hers and realized Mr. Shining Feather was wrong about this guy and how cold he was. Too hot to be cold was all she could think as his mouth pressed against hers. A powerful warmth flowed beneath her shivering flesh, sucking the blood deep into nerve endings she never imagined lived inside her body. She tilted her head back and went limp in his arms, letting him hold her af
loat as his tongue slid over her throat. Straight overhead she could see the moon, cut in two by the shadow of space, and she felt somehow cut in pieces because try as she might she couldn't squeeze him close enough to quench her longing for him. He was one huge steak as rare as God made them, and she was lucky above all the girls on the planet to find him.

  “Sweet,” she whispered aloud.

  Jim suddenly snapped her head back on to his mouth, and her ecstasy deepened beyond recovery even with the sharp pain that stabbed into her mouth. She had bit her tongue, or maybe he had done it. But the taste of blood in her mouth was the taste of pleasure. The pounding in her head that had plagued her all day returned a thousandfold, but now she fed it with a juice she had never dreamed of. It seemed to come out of Jim and into her mouth, where blood swam around their tongues like a forbidden elixir swirled in a sacred chalice. Yet there was so much of it that she couldn't imagine that it all belonged to her. But that was the heart of this seduction. Nothing belonged to anybody. Throw your body and soul into the temptation; let it all come back in tremors of satisfaction. Kissing him was such joy that the pounding in her brain was drowned by the sensation, swept away on a wet wind that blew from out of time, a wind that washed away her last thread of innocent and left her naked in the centre of the cold lake.

  How long he held her she wasn't sure. It seemed an eon had elapsed when he finally led her by her hand out of the water and up on to her balcony. Her skin was white marble; the drops of water that clung to it were like shards of ice. Yet she no longer shivered. She wasn’t even sure if she still breathed.

  They went into her bedroom and lay on the sheets beside each other. He looked at her, and she stared at him. His eyes were deep and wide; she could see space inside them that belonged to another dimension. They were also her own eyes – newborn twins – seen in unnatural reflection. She watched her own alien landscape unfolding in them as she closed her eyes and fell into darkness.

  She was in the mind of the immortal World, but she was not on the World. Her body was being sent away to feed. Her body, not her soul. She didn't have or need one of the latter. She had the mind of the World, and the World was always hungry. As she flew through the black abyss she dreamed of satisfying her cravings on the flesh of those who had been called brother and sister, but who were now enemies, only to be destroyed.