A Cosmology of Monsters

by Shaun Hamill

  Harry stopped coming into the store. She could understand why he would stay away—he’d withheld the fact of his job from her, and not only had she found him out, but she’d done so on a date with another man. A man who drove a Mercedes. Margaret would have stayed away, too. Poor Harry. But still she had his copy of The Tomb, which had been a gift from his mother. He would want it back, and Margaret was eager to get rid of it. Even two weeks after her freak-out in Pierce’s car, she continued to have nightmares about lurking figures and distant howls. She was almost positive that it was the book’s fault. The Tomb contained a story entitled “The Hound,” about a pair of grave robbers who dig up a centuries-old dead wizard only to find something inhuman in the coffin, “with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound…I merely screamed and ran away…”

  She borrowed a bicycle from Mrs. Johnson’s garage and rode across town to the McDonald’s. She arrived during the lunch rush and found Harry at the register, working his way through a long line of customers. He didn’t notice her when she joined the line; all his attention was focused on whoever stood right in front of him. He looked happy, as though each customer were precisely the person he was hoping to see. The look lasted until Margaret reached the front of the line, at which point he appeared to become fascinated by the cash register.

  “How can I help you?” he said.

  “I want to give you back your book.”

  “So give me back my book.”

  “When’s your break?” she said.

  “I already had it.”

  “When is your shift over?”

  He sighed. “I’m off at three.”

  She checked her watch. It was 1:45 now. “I will take”—she opened her purse and examined its meager contents—“your smallest order of fries. For here.”

  He rang her up, then handed her a tiny sack of fries on a tray. She took them to a table in the corner, sat down, and ate as slowly as possible—so slowly that the final fries were cold and soggy before she was done. It still took only fifteen minutes. Her attention wandered to the window, to the bright blue sky outside, and to Harry taking orders at the register. How could anyone be so consistently cheerful?

  Finally, at five past three, Harry shambled over and collapsed on the other side of her booth with a groan. As he sat, a wave of cooking oil smell rolled off him, and Margaret’s stomach growled. He fiddled with his little white McDonald’s hat while they spoke.

  “What can I do for you, Margaret?” he said.

  She pushed The Tomb across the table. “I wanted to make sure you got your book back.”

  “I appreciate it, but you didn’t have to.”

  “But your mother gave it to you. It was a birthday gift.”

  He rubbed his face and squinted at the ceiling. “Oh yeah. That.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Just—if you check the publication date, it’s only two years ago. The math doesn’t add up. Unless you think I’m fifteen.”

  Margaret snatched the book back and checked the copyright page. “Why lie about it?”

  “I thought it would improve my chances at a second date.” He appraised her. “But that’s not why you’re here.”

  She shifted in the booth and tried to decide how to answer this.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I get it. I saw your boyfriend’s clothes and his car. It’s an easy choice to make—the college boy, or the townie who runs a register for a living?”

  “I didn’t realize you didn’t go to Tilden,” she said. “I thought you were like me—broke and working your way through.”

  “I guess I could have clarified that,” he said. “But again—second date.”

  “So you’re not in school? Then why aren’t you in Vietnam?”

  “My dad’s dead and my mom is a paranoid schizophrenic,” he said. “I have a deferment.” He spun his hat around one index finger. Margaret moved her mouth around, but no words emerged, and he said, “It’s really okay. You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

  “Can we be friends?”

  The hat spun off his finger and landed on the floor. He bent to pick it up. “How would Captain Mercedes feel about that?”

  “His name is Pierce,” she said. “He’s a good person. A good Christian.”

  “Is that important to you?”

  “I go to a Christian school,” she said. “Don’t you believe in God?”

  He dropped his hat on the table. “Never met the guy.”

  She made a scoffing noise.

  “So your family’s rich enough for Tilden, but not rich enough for you to not have a job,” he said.

  “Daddy always said we were well-to-do, but not rich.” She regretted the words at once, hated the way they sounded.

  He shrugged. “I guess there’s rich and then there’s rich. From down here it all looks the same.”

  She shrugged back. “If you say so. Anyway, we don’t have any money anymore. That’s why I had to get a job.”

  “I’ve had a job since I was fourteen,” he said. “I worked through high school.”

  “Try doing it in college,” she said.

  “College? You mean when you’re only in class twelve hours a week?”

  “There’s more to it than that,” she said. “Homework. Papers. Essay midterms and finals.”

  “What are you studying?”

  “Marketing,” she said, surprised by the spontaneity of the lie.

  He rolled his eyes. “Do you and the good Christian boy both plan to get marketing jobs after you’re married? Do you see all your hard work paying big dividends in the next ten years, when you’re a housewife with three kids?”

  Her face felt hot. “His name is Pierce,” she repeated.

  “Good for him.”

  “So.” She drummed her fingers on the book. “You’re a grown man who still reads ghost and monster stories.”

  “You already knew that about me,” he said.

  “I guess I didn’t think about it until now,” she said. “You don’t feel sort of ridiculous? Like maybe you should be reading books for grown-ups?”

  “I think horror is the most important fiction in the world,” he said.

  She almost told him about the thing outside Pierce’s window, the red bugs, the weeks of nightmares. She almost yelled at him for encouraging the night terrors into her head with the stupid book. Instead, she took a turn laughing at him. “That?” She pointed at the book. “It’s self-important, unreadable junk.”

  He took the book back. “What do you want from me, Margaret?”

  “Nothing. I only wanted to give your book—your book of lies, as it turns out—back.”

  He laughed again, but it didn’t sound mean this time, only surprised.

  “What?” she said.

  He held up both hands in surrender. “Nothing. I like the way you phrase things when you’re mad. I can see why you want to study marketing.”

  “I actually lied about that,” she admitted. “I’m studying English.”

  He leaned forward, put his face in his hands, and laughed harder.

  “You don’t have to make fun of me,” she said. “I’m already embarrassed.”

  He wiped tears from his cheeks, trying to regain control. “Why are we so desperate to impress each other? Listen, I’m sorry for what I said about you being a housewife with three kids and no job. I was raised by a single mother working two jobs. She taught me better than that.” He checked his watch and grimaced. “Speaking of, I need to get home and check on her.”

  They both stood. Margaret glanced at Mrs. Johnson’s bicycle, chained to the railing out
side, then at Harry. “Can I get a ride?”

  8

  When they arrived at Mrs. Johnson’s, Harry got out to help Margaret unload the bike from the trunk.

  “So you and the good Christian are pretty serious then,” he said.

  She punched his arm. “Stop it. And yes. I’m going to meet his family for Thanksgiving.”

  “It’s not even Halloween yet,” he said. “Thanksgiving is a long way off.”

  “So what?” she said.

  He shut the trunk and leaned back on it, arms crossed. “My mom never stopped dating until she and my father were married. She went on a date the night before her wedding.”

  “No she didn’t,” Margaret said.

  “My hand to God—”

  “Whom you don’t believe in—”

  “She said she wanted to be sure.”

  “What’s your point, Harry?”

  “You’re not married yet. It’s not even Thanksgiving. Maybe we could see each other a few more times before then.”

  She made a face. “I don’t think Pierce would like that.”

  “Then I’m glad I’m not asking him,” Harry said. “Who cares what he wants? What do you want?” When she didn’t answer right away, he said, “Let’s at least try one more time.”

  “You’re not going to change my mind,” she said.

  “Probably not,” he agreed. “But I’m not ready to give you up yet, either.”

  We are in love, Margaret repeated to herself, trying to picture Pierce in her head. We are in love.

  9

  On their second date, Harry took Margaret out of Searcy and again followed all the signs for Little Rock. Once in the city, he pulled a scrap of paper from his shirt pocket and read from it as he navigated the downtown area. They entered a run-down residential neighborhood lined with old houses in various states of decomposition—broken windows, sunken porches, dangling rain gutters. They’d probably been beautiful once, but Margaret wondered who could live here anymore.

  They stopped at the corner of one of these streets, in the shadow of a turreted two-story house with a sign planted in the yard: SPOOKY HOUSE! A line of people started at the base of the porch and stretched down the sidewalk.

  “What is this place?” Margaret said.

  In 1968, a year before the Haunted Mansion opened at Disneyland, and well before the proliferation of copycat attractions around the country, Harry didn’t have the easily understood cultural shorthand haunted house available to him, and had to reach for the closest available equivalent.

  “It’s supposed to be like a fun house at a carnival, or a ghost train ride,” he said, as he circled the block and hunted for a parking spot. “But it’s a real house. So this is what it would actually be like to go into a haunted place.” He leaned past her, opened the glove compartment, and removed a folded-up newspaper. Margaret caught a headline (LOCAL BOY MISSING) before he flipped it over and handed it to her and pointed to a small ad in one corner.

  Margaret angled the paper so she could read by the streetlight as he backed into an open spot across the street from the attraction. The ad was a small square of black featuring a generic, cartoonish ghost with bold white print beneath: “Come to Spooky House—AND EXPERIENCE A TRUE-LIFE NIGHTMARE!”

  “This sounds like fun to you?” she said.

  “If you don’t want to go, that’s okay,” he said. “We can see a movie, or I can take you home.” She heard the strain in his voice. He wanted this bad, but also wanted to be a good sport.

  “No, let’s do it,” she said. “How often do I get a chance to live out a true-life nightmare?”

  They joined the line and shuffled closer to the door every twenty minutes or so, as groups of laughing people emerged through the fence around the side of the house. Finally they stood before the ticket taker, an older, heavyset woman with limp gray hair and a cigarette wedged in one corner of her mouth. Harry paid. The woman made change, and then pointed inside.

  “Should we— How does it work?” Harry said.

  “Go in. You’ll see,” the woman said, her voice the sound of stones scraped together.

  The front door stood open, but dangling orange streamers obscured the view. Margaret and Harry pushed through into a dimly lit entryway with a flickering bulb overhead and orange fairy lights strung around the banister, twisting up into the darkness of the second floor. Margaret leaned forward and peered up the stairs. Something moved, a shape distinguishing itself against the darkness, retreating from view. Margaret stepped back and bumped into Harry.

  “You okay?” he said.

  “Fine,” she mumbled. Maybe this had been a bad idea.

  A group of four teenagers came in after them, two couples giggling and leaning into one another, their energy palpable and reassuring. Harry and Margaret moved aside to let the kids take the lead. They followed them down the hall, which opened on the right side into the living room. Four people sat on a severe, uncomfortable-looking couch, wearing weird (but not exactly scary) costumes. They appeared to be family—the father dressed in a suit and sporting a thick black mustache; the mother with long, straight black hair and a tight, form-fitting gown; a chubby boy in a striped T-shirt with a chili bowl haircut; and a little girl in a black dress, dark hair braided on either side of her grumpy, dour little face. They stared at a television screen covered in static.

  “Welcome!” the father said, with a wave. “We’re watching the weather report on TV.”

  “Looks like snow again, Gomez,” the mother said to the father.

  Gomez? How did Margaret know that name?

  “It always looks like snow,” the little girl said.

  “You know, Wednesday, that’s an excellent point,” Gomez conceded.

  Wednesday? Gomez?

  “Oh, it’s like that TV show,” one of the teenage girls said. “The uh—what was it called?”

  “The Addams Family,” Harry said, so quiet only Margaret heard. She caught his eye and he made an apologetic face. She studied the Addams impersonators. She saw it now, sure—but wasn’t The Addams Family a sitcom that made fun of monsters? Wasn’t it a comedy of errors, not horror? The ad in the paper hadn’t seemed to be advertising funny.

  “Since we’re snowed in, you’ll have to join us for dinner,” Gomez said. “Lurch!”

  A slightly-taller-than-average figure shambled up the hallway toward the visitors. He wore a tuxedo and makeup that made him look like Frankenstein’s monster. He groaned in the tone of a question.

  “Lurch, show our guests to the dining room, will you?” Gomez said.

  The tuxedoed monster groaned again. Margaret, Harry, Gomez, and the teenagers followed him down the hall into a large, candlelit dining room, where a long table had been set for twelve. Lurch walked around the table and pulled out six chairs. When no one moved to accept the invitation, he leaned forward and removed the lid from a serving dish in the middle of the table. He gestured toward the contents, a mass of black that seemed to be writhing in the flickering light.

  Still no one came forward. Lurch reached into the dish, grabbed a handful of whatever was inside, and pitched it at the guests. The mass broke apart in midair and Margaret had time to register spindly limbs, a plastic shine. The teenagers shouted as the black stuff hit them and bounced off, thumping to the floor. Margaret squinted at the shapes. Rubber spiders. Lurch was throwing rubber spiders at them. At least they weren’t red.

  “Oh, brother,” Harry said.

  “Lurch, what have I told you about playing with your food?” Gomez said. He stood much closer than Margaret would have liked, and his breath stank of cigarettes. “Now we have to clean our guests!” She was grateful when he pushed to the front of the group and led them to a door at the end of the hall. Smoke drifted out from the crack between the door and the floor
.

  They shuffled into a kitchen so full of fog Margaret couldn’t see the floor. A man in goggles and a white coat stood in the center of the room and stirred a smoking pot.

  “It’s alive!” he wailed. “Alive!”

  Harry’s shoulders slumped a little and his face dropped into his hands.

  “How’s the soup, Henry?” Gomez said.

  “It’s coming along swimmingly, Mr. Addams,” the man in the lab coat said. He used the metal spoon to beat at something in the pot, splashing water onto the stove.

  “Glad to hear it!” Gomez said. “Do you by any chance have clean towels? We had a mishap in the dining room.”

  “Nothing clean, sorry,” Henry said. “That is, unless—does bloody mean the same thing as dirty?” He held up a white towel soaked crimson. The teenagers moaned with disgust.

  Gomez turned to address the visitors again. “I think we have some towels in the upstairs bathroom if you want to head that way.”

  “We’re not dirty,” Harry said. “Can we go back out the way we came?”

  “Nonsense,” Gomez said. “We recently remodeled the upstairs guest bedroom. You simply must see it. Lurch?”

  Lurch reappeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “Take our guests upstairs for some clean towels,” Gomez said.

  Lurch grunted and gestured everyone back into the hall. Margaret went first, Harry right behind her.

  “It’s a small house,” he whispered, close to her ear, hot breath on her neck. “There can’t be much more.” Then, a second later, “I’m sorry.”

  Margaret led the trek up the stairs and moved aside at the landing to make room for the rest of the group. They stood in a narrow, dimly lit hall lined on both sides with closed doors. There was also, incongruously, a tall potted plant on the wall opposite the stairs. Margaret leaned over the railing and looked down at the first floor. She thought about the shape she’d seen staring down at her from this spot when she walked in. That part hadn’t felt hokey, or like it was part of a joke. It had felt real. She pushed away from the railing and faced the huddled group.