A Monstrous Place (Tales From Between)

by Matthew Stott

  ‘Oh yes, good plan, about time that snooty beastie was brought down a peg or two, oh yes,’ said Mr Adams. ‘Went looking for the blighter myself once, you know. No luck.’

  It was almost a month since Billy Tyler had vanished into thin air. All that had been found was a single Doctor Who slipper, tipped onto its side on the front garden path. He had been in the year below Molly, so she hadn’t known him other than by sight. Still, it felt strange to think that someone from her own school had disappeared.

  ‘The Loch Ness Monster isn’t real!’ said Neil, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Ignore Neil. He’s got the imagination of a dead wasp.’

  ‘Oi! I’m sorry I’m more grown up than you, but I left monsters behind a long time ago. I suppose you still believe in Father Christmas and Elves, too?’ Neil said defensively.

  ‘Course! What sort of rubbish world doesn’t have the possibility of Elves hiding at the bottom of your garden?’ said Molly, as Neil shook his head and rolled his eyes. Neil was podgy and serious. His parents were both teachers at his and Molly’s school- which, yes, was just about the worst thing any child could imagine. But Neil, being pleasingly odd, actually enjoyed being taught by them.

  ‘Good, sturdy lad you are, Neil m’boy, plenty of timber,’ said Mr Adams.

  ‘Mum says I’m due a growth spurt any day now; that’ll sort me out,’ said Neil defensively as he sat up straighter and attempted to suck his gut in.

  ‘No m’lad! Sign of health that is! Just look at me!’ said Mr Adams, slapping his meaty frame. ‘You need the extra padding when you’re out there on the front, I can tell you!’

  ‘The front of what?’ asked Neil, wiping a crusty sleeve across his nose.

  ‘Front of what? Front of what?’ said Mr Adams. ‘The front line, m’laddo! The front line! Where the bally action is!’

  ‘War! Adventure! Exploration!’ said Molly, jumping to her feet, cards flying, grasping an imaginary machine gun, ready to do what was needed.

  ‘That’s it, you’ve got it; adventure! Battle to the death! Queen and country!’

  ‘Good versus evil!’ Molly was now mowing down imaginary zombie Nazis, who were hell-bent on slurping their tasty brains right out of their skulls.

  ‘I don’t think I would like to go to war,’ said Neil, slumping down again. ‘I don’t like to travel around too much. I like where I am. And then there’s the food. You don’t know what you’re going to get.’

  ‘I’ve been there, on the front line, looking the enemy square in the eye, knowing that each day could be my last. Only way to live,’ said Mr Adams, jaw set, his chest swelling with pride.

  Molly was now covering her ears to save her eardrums from the blast caused by the imaginary grenade she had just tossed.

  ‘No office job, not for me; tried to put me behind a desk after a while! Oh no, I said, not this fella, you put a rucksack on my back, a rifle in my hand and you point me to where the action is. That’s where I should be! Certain death is it? Let me be the Judge of that! I’ll grab hold of old Mr Death and give him what for! Front line, girl. Front line.’

  As Molly dove across the giggling Neil to save him from the flying shrapnel hurtling in his direction, Mr Adams looked into the far distance, a half-smile on his face, lost in memory. ‘Yes. Yes, yes. Only way to live...’

  Molly waved at Mr and Mrs Fisk, who were tending the big bush by their gate. Or ‘Jeff The Bush’ as they called it.

  ‘He’s gone again, hey Molly? Hm?’ said Mrs Fisk, pointing at Mr Adams with her garden snippers.

  ‘We’re on the front line, Mrs Fisk; zombie Nazis everywhere!’ replied Molly.

  ‘Zom what? What’s that she says?’ asked Mr Fisk.

  ‘Zombies, Mr Fisk,’ said his wife.

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes, I sees, I do. Zombies is it? Terrible lot they is, Molly, worst lot you could ever finds in my experience, 'int that right, Mrs Fisk?’

  ‘He is not wrong there Molly, 'orrible lot to the very core. The things they’d do to kiddies, even!’

  ‘Not right, not to kiddies,’ said Mr Fisk, sadly.

  Neil leapt to his feet, ‘Oh dear, I’m late!’ said Neil, looking at his watch, ‘It’s chicken roast day! I don’t want to miss chicken roast day!’ And with that he headed for home at the hurry-up, waving back at Molly. ‘See you at School tomorrow!’ said Neil, pushing his glasses back up his nose once again as Molly pulled off expert army rolls on the front lawn and Mr Adams remained far away, lost in another time and another place.

  ***

  Neil was awoken in the dead of night by somebody calling his name.

  ‘Neil.’

  His eyes flickered behind closed lids, then settled.

  ‘Neil, are you up there?’

  Neil’s eyes open, blinked twice, then shut again. A stone pinged off the bedroom window from outside.

  ‘Neil!’

  He sat up, groggy, and blinked into the darkness.

  ‘Hey..? What is it? Who’s there?’ said Neil.

  ‘Neil, it’s me,’ said the voice again. It was a girl’s voice. ‘Come to the window!’

  He recognised the voice. Confused, he pulled back the covers and shuffled towards the closed curtains, scratching at his mess of hair. There was a second ‘crack’ as another stone struck the window pane. Neil pulled back the curtain and looked outside; Molly was stood in his front garden.

  ‘Molly..?’

  ‘Get down here, I’ve got something really important to tell you!’

  ‘Like what? What time is it? Does your Mum know you’re out there?’

  ‘Just come downstairs quickly and I’ll tell you!’

  ‘But—’ before he could finish Molly ran out of view as she headed for the front door. Neil let the curtain drop and walked towards the bedroom door, confused. What in goodness sake was Molly doing outside in the middle of the night? On his way downstairs he had the strangest feeling that he wasn’t actually fully awake, but he assumed that was just because of how late it must be.

  Neil opened the front door, Molly was stood a few steps back, a huge smile on her face.

  ‘Come out, Neil, I’ve got such a secret to whisper.’

  ‘It’s late. Couldn’t this wait for school tomorrow?’ asked Neil, yawning.

  ‘No, it has to be now, has to be now; come over here, just a few steps is all it’ll take, just a few steps, Neil.’

  Neil sighed, ‘Fine, but then I’m going right back to bed.’

  Neil stepped out of the house. It was then that he noticed Molly’s teeth for the first time. There seemed to be too many in her mouth, certainly more than she usually had. And then there was their size and shape. They were more like yellowed daggers than actual teeth and they dug into her skin as she moved her jaw. How odd he hadn’t noticed that until just now, until he’d stepped out of his home and into the night.

  ‘I don’t think you are Molly at all,’ said Neil.

  ‘Don’t you want to know my secret, Neil?’ it asked.

  ‘No. I think I want to go back inside now,’ said Neil, and the thing pretending to be his friend smiled a horrible smile and its teeth sliced deeply into its face.

  ~Chapter Four~

  Molly woke one weekend morning, very probably a Sunday, and she couldn’t find her Mum.

  ‘I’m sure Neil will turn up, don’t worry,’ Mum had said three weeks ago when Molly had returned home early from school, eyes red, after her teacher had taken her aside to tell her the news of Neil’s disappearance. Mum had wrapped her arms around Molly and kissed the top of her head, unable really to think of anything else to say, because what was there to say at a time like that? Molly had felt a little better, safe and sound in her arms, even if she somehow knew that Neil was gone for good.

  After her shouts went unanswered, Molly first checked her Mums bedroom; the duvet was pulled back and her dressing gown was missing. Molly yawned, more tired than she should be.

  ‘Neil gone, hey? Damn shame, good s
ort, Neil. Course, when I was in Nepal, people would go missing all the time,’ Mr Adams had said, ‘You’d make camp for the night, tents up, spot of rum and something meaty and filling to chew on round a crackling camp fire, bit of an old sing-song, then off to the land of nod in your sleeping bag. You’d wake up to find a tent gashed down one side, the contents spewed around as though the tent itself had exploded outward, chap whose tent it was completely missing. No one was awoken by screams in the night, nothing like that, just gone. Strange business. Locals spoke about the Gan’Tach; wild woman witches so they said that would come out at night and feast on a man’s guts and what-have-you. Hair washes around them like they’re underwater, skin as green as an unripe banana. I heard them a couple of times, oh yes, calling to each other in the night like mad owls. Would sit up till the morning, rifle in hand; no Gan’Tach was getting the drop on me as I slept. It’s unsporting. You come for me, you come whilst I’m awake and you look me in the eyes! Manners and fair play cost nothing.’

  Next was Gran’s room, but Mum wasn’t in there either. Molly swayed in the doorway, resisting the strong, strange urge to climb up onto her Gran’s bed and fall back to sleep. To curl into a tight ball and ignore everything.

  ‘He’s gone has he? Hm?’ said Mrs Fisk.

  ‘Who’s gone then, hey? What you talking about there?’ asked Mr Fisk, jabbing at the garden soil with a trowel.

  ‘Neil,’ said Molly, sat on her front step, playing cards on her own.

  ‘Oh I gets ya’; the chubby healthy speccy boy of yours, hey? That’s the one, that’s ‘im, 'init, hey?’ said Mr Fisk.

  ‘That’s 'im in one, Mr Fisk. We seen it on the old telly box, Molly. On the news information show, we did. Crying shame it is, young 'un like that, all healthy and full of beans and ready on that very precipice of life, gasping in the future to come, yes. Fair turns the old heart cold and sad so it does.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, yes; 'orrible luck for anyone that is and no mistake.’

  ‘Oh, don’t look at me, Molly girl, I fair feels the tears about to force their way out of these old crinkle cut eyes and down me wrinkled soppy face. I feels things so deeply you sees, don’t I Mr Fisk?’

  ‘Oh she really does. Never been one so empathetic as Mrs Fisk. She knows the true meaning of despair. You let them watery emotions out, Mrs Fisk, you don’t hold 'em back on our account. You feels it, girl.’

  Next Molly had tried the bathroom, but Mum wasn’t there. The bath was dry, the shower curtain too. She rubbed her thumb along her Mum’s toothbrush. It hadn’t been used.

  ‘Mum?’ called Molly down the stairs, stifling another yawn. ‘Mum, are you down there or what?’

  Silence.

  Molly sighed and padded down the staircase. ‘Mum, you better not be ignoring me on purpose otherwise you’re for it.’

  Into the front room next, the TV set was cold, unused since the previous night. Then the back room, running her hand along the book cases, stuffed with spine-broken paperbacks. Finally the kitchen. No recently used morning tea mug sat in the sink, no telltale toast crumbs. Molly wondered what was the best thing to do next. She decided to phone her Mum and just ask her where she was and what she was playing at, but then found her Mum’s mobile phone sat on the kitchen table, so that would be useless. Should she call the police? That seemed a bit rash. As far as Molly knew, Mum had just nipped down to the shops for milk. She checked the fridge, a full three pints looked back at her. Well, maybe bread for toast, Mum loved a bit of jam on toast in the morning. She opened the bread bin, half a loaf looked back.

  Molly felt very worried and very tired. She went up to her Gran’s room and curled up on the bed to try and think things through. ‘She’ll be back soon. Back from the shops. Maybe she’s gone to get porridge, or sweets, or a newspaper or something. Yeah, that’s probably it. She’ll be back any minute.’

  Molly felt very, very tired now.

  More tired than she perhaps had ever felt.

  ‘Yes... yes she’ll.... very soon, I... I bet...’

  Her eyes drooped, then sprang open, then drooped again as the fight left her.

  And so she fell asleep...

  ...Molly sat upright suddenly and it was dark. She looked to the bedside cabinet to check the time on the clock. Surely she couldn’t have slept all day? As she looked she saw something strange and had to squint to try and make sense of it. The clock didn’t have the usual three hands— the hour hand, the minute hand, and the second hand- this clock had thirteen hands. An hour hand pointed directly to each of the twelve hours indicated on the clock’s face. The thirteenth hand, the one used to count out each second, jumped about like a crazed fly. It leapt forward eight seconds, then back twenty three seconds, then forward a full sixty seconds, then it would pause as though contemplating its next move.

  ‘Well that’s a bit strange,’ said Molly.

  ‘Yes, well this isn’t the Awake world, Molly, you can’t expect time to work in exactly the same way here.’

  Molly turned towards the source of the familiar voice.

  Her Gran was stood smiling kindly in the doorway.

  ‘Gran?’ said Molly.

  ‘Hello Molly.’

  ‘But you’re, well... really very dead.’

  ‘Oh, I’m as dead as they come. All rotten in a box under the dirt, dressed up in my best clothes,’ said Gran, laughing.

  Molly looked at the unusual clock with its thirteen hands, and then back to her dead Gran, stood smiling in the doorway.

  ‘Well, strange just took a step up to really weird,’ said Molly, and Gran laughed again.

  ~Chapter Five~

  Gran was stood in front of the mirror on the wardrobe door, fastidiously flattening down the lines of her clothing. ‘Yes, well, all in all not too bad considering,’ she said, and fussed at her neatly curled hair.

  ‘You’re all sort of... grey,’ said Molly. ‘Your skin, your clothes; even your eyes.’

  ‘Well I am dead now, aren’t I, dear? Colour is for the living.’ Gran turned with a satisfied flourish and plopped down onto the bed, next to Molly. ‘Now what time is it?’ She peered at the many-armed bedside clock. ‘Ah, I see it’s everything o’clock; you’re right on time, my dear,’ and she hugged Molly tightly. Molly was tentative at first, before allowing her arms to wrap around her Gran. She had been worried Gran would be cold to the touch, a grey icicle, but no, she was just as warm and comforting and soft as Molly remembered.

  ‘I don’t understand this. This is mad. Madder than mad,’ said Molly.

  ‘Oh yes, this must seem pretty bonkers, I imagine,’ said Gran.

  ‘You’re dead, I mean properly dead. Dead as a dodo. How am I talking to you?’

  ‘We’ve never really stopped, have we? We often natter whilst you’re asleep and the boundaries between worlds are at their weakest. It’s a bit naughty really. I was told I shouldn’t, but then when have you ever known me to do what I’m told?’ said Gran, holding her tightly.

  A sudden horrible thought struck Molly. ‘Am I dead now? Have I died? Am I a ghost?’

  ‘Oh, no, no, no, Molly my love, you’re so alive you positively glow!’

  ‘Oh. Well. Good. That’s good. Still alive. Okay. Then how is this happening? Where are we?’

  ‘Where do you think we are?’

  Molly looked around the familiar unfamiliar room. There was the large wooden wardrobe, stuffed full of Gran’s clothing and photo albums, the dresser overflowing with perfumes and knick-knacks, the brass framed bed, the old fashioned alarm clock, ‘Well, it looks like your room, your room in our house, but it doesn’t feel like our house,’ Molly stuck out her tongue and waggled it around. ‘Doesn’t taste like our house either.’

  ‘Clever girl. We are in our house and yet we aren’t, you see?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Molly. ‘Well no, not really.’

  ‘We’re Between,’ said Gran, gesturing around with one grey hand.

  ‘Right. Between what?’

  ‘Between
Awake and Asleep.’ Gran stood and walked around the room, picking things up and peering at them. ‘There are many layers to reality. You only live in one of them. The real world, that’s what we call ‘Awake’. This layer right now exists someplace between ‘Awake’ and ‘Asleep’. Between the Real World and the Land of Nod, where the dreams play. We are Between. Simple as that.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Molly, and she found herself accepting what her dead Gran said implicitly. Gran had never lied to her whilst she was alive, why would she start now that she was dead?

  ‘Oh indeed.’ And Gran threw herself back down onto the bed with such force that the mattress tossed Molly into the air and she landed again flat on her back.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ said Gran, who lay back beside her.

  ‘Oh, you have no idea,’ Molly smiled back. ‘So was there a reason you brought me here? I’m really happy you have, but it feels like there was a reason.’

  Gran turned her face from Molly’s and looked at the ceiling, ‘Oh yes. I tried to tell you as we spoke in your dreams, but things can get so vague in the Asleep. It can be hard to get things across with any clarity. So in the end I had no choice but to pull you Between, where we both could really be.’

  ‘So what was it you were trying to tell me? Something good?’

  ‘Not just tell you, dear; warn you.’

  ‘Warn me? Okay, well that sounds like the opposite of good. Warn me about what?’

  ‘Why,’ said Gran, turning her head back to face Molly, her grey eyes steady and serious, ‘I needed to warn you about the monsters next door.’

  ~Chapter Six~

  ‘They are very, very old; perhaps even older than that. Our idea of ancient is a drop in the ocean to them,’ said Gran.

  Molly was perched on the edge of the bed, trying to process what she had just been told, ‘But that’s, well I mean... no offence, but that’s kind of stupid! Mr and Mrs Fisk?!’ said Molly.

  ‘I know how it sounds, believe me. But yes. Mr and Mrs Fisk.’