A Cosmology of Monsters

by Shaun Hamill

  She paged through the pamphlet, trying to take it all in at once, focusing not on sentences, but on paragraphs, pictures, diagrams of brain cells that she didn’t (couldn’t) understand. Individual words glommed on to her mind: surgery, radiation, headaches, seizures, disinhibition. On the last page, she found a sticky note with another few words scribbled in Harry’s small, blocky handwriting: inoperable, radiation, antipsychotics, personality change, 6 months–1 yr.

  She sat down on the bed among the upended drawers. Harry had been to the specialist. He had been diagnosed. Glioblastoma. Brain tumor. A hound lurking out of sight, driving the hero mad. It all made sense. The disappearing money. The crazy behavior, the shouting, the hitting, the cruelty. The haunted house, the fanatical determination to get it right no matter what the cost. Six months to a year.

  “Oh, Harry,” she said.

  “Mom!” Sydney called, yanking her into the present moment.

  “Coming!” she shouted. She dropped the pamphlet and walked through the house on wobbly legs. She braced herself against the living room doorway. Everyone was standing in a circle around Harry. “I couldn’t find any more thread,” she said.

  “We’ll have to do without it,” Harry said. He looked around at his assembled cast and crew. “Okay, everyone. Have fun tonight, but also keep in mind that we’re doing important work.” Noting the skepticism on some of his audience’s faces, he held up a hand. “Hear me out. Human beings are small and insignificant in a big, scary universe, and in a horror story—be it a movie, a book, or a haunted house—we have to face that fact. But no matter how scary things get, no matter what the audience has to confront or endure, there’s always a happy ending. When the credits roll, or the reader closes the book, or when our guests walk out tonight, their lives will go on. Because they faced the dark, the sun will shine a little brighter tomorrow, and the real-life monsters won’t seem so bad. For a day, or an hour, or even a moment, life will be better.” He seemed like he might say more, but instead shook his head. “Sydney, get everyone into their places. Mom and I are heading to the gravedigger’s shack.”

  The crowd of players dispersed. Margaret and Harry made their way to the garage. It looked like a set from an old movie: rough wooden walls, an old calendar; a cardboard stove in the middle of the room with an orange lightbulb inside to simulate fire; a small desk near the front door, some papers scattered on it; a pair of shovels leaning in one corner; and in the middle of the room, the sleek silver coffin Harry had bought from Theater of Vandergriff. Margaret started to put on her costume, but stopped and stared down into the plush silky lining, torn and faded after years of use.

  “Do you want to run your lines?” Harry said.

  “No, I’m fine,” she said.

  “Okay then.” He rubbed his temples.

  “How do you feel?” Margaret said, zipping up her jumpsuit and putting on a blue cap.

  He frowned. “It still feels wrong somehow. I should have done more. The whole thing should be better than it is.”

  “It’ll have to do,” Margaret said. “Want me to help you into the coffin?”

  She held his hands as he lowered himself in. She leaned over, to close the lid.

  “Listen, Margaret—”

  “I’m pregnant,” she said. She hadn’t intended to say it. As far as she knew, she was still planning on an abortion in a little less than two weeks. The confession popped out of its own accord, the only thing she could think of to delay the real conversation. An announcement of life, to stave off one of death.

  My father’s reaction to my impending birth was one of poorly concealed pain. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  He opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by a loud bang on the garage door. He looked away from her, to the door, then back.

  “What was that?” he said.

  “Maybe it’s Daniel Ransom, trying to hurry us up,” Margaret said.

  The bang sounded again, twice more.

  “Maybe,” Harry said. “Margaret,” he said again, and looked frightened.

  She didn’t want to hear it. Not tonight. Tomorrow they would deal with glioblastoma. They would discuss and debate round after round of punishing treatment, the possibility of her handsome, kind, loving husband reduced beneath the force of radiation, dulled by medications meant to stop seizures and prevent him from assaulting his children. Tomorrow they would discuss what to do about me, the parasite gathering mass in Margaret’s womb. Tomorrow they would face the thing on the doorstep, demanding to be let in. But not tonight.

  She leaned forward and kissed him.

  “I love you,” she said. “Until the end of time and whatever comes after that.”

  He reached for her, as if to keep her close, but she stood straight, affixed her fake mustache to her face, and walked toward the door. The banging was insistent now, unceasing.

  “Let’s give these people a scare,” she said.

  The Turner Sequence II: Sydney

  When Sydney enters the City, she arrives in terror, a scream still echoing in her heart. The fear fades almost at once, however, as she finds herself outside the house she lived in for the first half of her childhood, the house she associates with love and plenty and safety. She’s standing in a line that stretches down the block from the garage. Everyone is in costume, Sydney included. She wears a rumpled, dirty pink tutu, and white makeup is caked on her arms, shoulders, and face. A giant inflatable ghost sways back and forth on the roof, summoning visitors. It’s ominous against the darkening sky, and a thrill of delight courses through her. It’s the haunted house she built with her father when she was ten years old—the last thing the family did together before Daddy got sick.

  The garage door is open, but a false front has been built into it, so it looks like the entrance to a little hovel—an aging, weathered wall with a door on the right side and a foggy little window on the left.

  Mr. Ransom, from next door, stands in front of the garage, counting out groups of people to go inside. There are six people in front of Sydney who want to go in together and are willing to wait, so Mr. Ransom has them step aside and beckons Sydney and the person behind her up to the door.

  Shouldn’t you be inside? Mr. Ransom says. Sydney prepares for a scolding, but he winks. I won’t tell, he says. He turns the knob and pushes the door open.

  Sydney and a group of strangers shuffle into the gravedigger’s shack. A small worktable and chair stand to the right, and a large coffin dominates the middle of the room. Sydney’s mother, Margaret, sits at the worktable, dressed in a blue coverall and cap, wearing a gray wig and fake mustache. She’s bent over some paperwork, a metal thermos lid full of coffee at one side. She looks up and feigns surprise.

  Well hello there! she says, her voice twisted and scratchy but still not exactly manly. I wasn’t expecting visitors so soon, but welcome all the same. In fact, if you want to know the truth, I could use a second opinion on a couple of things. Think you might be able to help me out?

  Okay! says a small boy in the group.

  Let’s take a walk, the Gravedigger says. She stands and gestures to another door at the back of the room. There’s something queer afoot here, and I’m not sure—

  The lid of the coffin flies open and a man in a white top hat and tuxedo sits up and roars. The group screams, and Sydney starts a bit, too, even though it’s only Daddy in makeup. He looks inhuman.

  See now, that’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about, the Gravedigger says. She opens the door—the door that would typically open onto the kitchen but instead opens on a black tunnel of modular walls that leads through the house and into the backyard. The tuxedoed ghoul howls after Sydney and the visitors, but doesn’t give chase.

  I had to break both his legs with a shovel so he’d stay put, the Gravedig
ger admits, leading the group down the hall. Panels open in the walls. A tentacle emerges near the baseboard and gropes at Sydney’s leg. It’s cold and slimy through her tights. She doesn’t scream, but shakes the tentacle off and follows the group into the next room.

  As she does, the group disappears, and she finds herself out of costume, out of the haunted house, and on the living room couch. The house is still wrecked from last week’s Halloween prep. Mom has made some cursory attempts at cleaning, but rolls of fabric still lean in the corners, and makeup and prosthetics still cover the dining room table. The whole family is still exhausted, moving through life in a sleepy stupor.

  Eunice sits next to Sydney on the couch. Mom and Daddy are on the love seat catercorner, holding hands. They’re getting along better since Halloween, and Sydney’s not sure how she feels about that. She’s not sure Mom deserves Daddy’s forgiveness.

  Mom says, We have news.

  Good news or bad news? Eunice says.

  Both, Mom says. First, we’re having another baby.

  Is that the good news or the bad news? Sydney says.

  Mom scoffs. Good news, smart aleck.

  What’s the bad news? Eunice says.

  Daddy licks his lips. I have cancer.

  What’s cancer? Sydney says. She’s heard the word on TV and she knows it’s bad, but she doesn’t know why.

  It’s a disease, Eunice says. A bunch of abnormal cells divide and destroy your body tissue. It’s like being eaten alive.

  Both Mom and Daddy give Eunice a look somewhere between astonishment and disgust.

  You’ll get better, right? Sydney says.

  Her parents exchange a glance. I have good doctors and they’re hopeful, Daddy says, but it’s a lie. Grown-ups are always lying to Sydney. They tell her Santa Claus is real and monsters are fake, that they still love each other when they don’t, that they’re doing their best when it’s clear they don’t care. Here’s another falsehood to add to the pile.

  Eunice gives Mom and Daddy a weak smile. Sydney wants to puke. Excuse me, she says. She runs out the back door, away from these liars, but she finds herself back in the Tomb on Halloween night, in a group of visitors following the Gravedigger into a room that is completely dark. The group titters nervously.

  The perfect darkness is broken by a single instant of blinding light, and the sense of something moving, too quick to track before the room plunges back into darkness. The other visitors gasp. One person yelps.

  The light returns, this time in two pulses, then three. Sydney can make out a figure on the far side of the room, small and lithe, and she recognizes herself—the version of herself that performs on Halloween night. She watches her double work through the five positions, and she feels her own muscles stretch and flex even as she stands still among strangers. She’s become both audience and performer, and as music begins to pound from a boom box hidden in the corner—a light but driving piano medley joined by ringing bells and a low bass line—her smooth movements are chopped into a series of stills by the strobe light: arms raised, leg kicked high; head bent forward, arms out at her sides; standing on her toes, spinning across the room the way Mrs. Ransom taught her.

  That peculiar calm settles over Sydney, the calm that comes only when she performs. The watching version of Sydney fades away, merges with the dancing Sydney. She raises one leg like a bird, croisé derriere, spins once, twice, three times, and on her third rotation, she finds herself sitting on the bed in Eunice’s room while Eunice sits at her desk and reads aloud from a comically large library book.

  Glioblastoma is a tumor that arises from astrocytes—those are the star-shaped cells that make up the supportive tissue of the brain, the glue that holds everything together. It’s a highly malignant tumor—

  What does malignant mean? Sydney interrupts.

  Life threatening, Eunice says. Very dangerous. She starts reading again. It’s a highly malignant tumor because the cells reproduce quickly and they’re supported by a large network of blood vessels. There are two types of glioblastoma. There’s primary or “de novo,” which forms and makes its presence known very quickly. Then there’s secondary, which has a slower, longer growth period but is still very aggressive.

  Which type does Daddy have? Sydney says.

  Primary, Eunice says.

  Sydney and Eunice sit in silence, trying to find a way to live with the apocalyptic implications of this information.

  You believe me, right? Eunice says. About the man at the window?

  Sydney gets up and leaves the room, but as she passes through the door, she finds herself in a hospital room. Daddy’s in the bed, his hair gone, his body wasted and sunken. Mom has her chair pulled up next to him. She looks grotesque next to Daddy, as though gaining mass at the exact rate he’s losing it. Like she’s draining him to feed the new baby. Sydney and Eunice sit on a couch in the corner, watching a TV show with the volume turned down. It seems like it’s about fishing.

  Mom holds a notebook balanced on her lap, making notes and sketches based on Daddy’s dictation. They’re working on next year’s haunted house, as if it’s something Daddy will be around to do. Daddy’s idea is a whole city, and now he and Mom are populating it with buildings.

  It’s a hotel, Daddy says now. Not remote, like in The Shining, but downtown, fancy—and it’s been abandoned. The windows are open and the curtains are billowing, snow’s blowing in, and there’s weird Christmas-slash-clown stuff everywhere. Like fun house meets Winter Wonderland.

  Mom holds up her sketch pad to him. Like this?

  Daddy snatches the pad and pencil from her. He flips the page and makes quick, violent pencil strokes. I swear to Christ, Margaret, I would rather die alone than spend another minute with you.

  Eunice puts her face in her hands, but Sydney keeps her head up. He’s sick. He doesn’t mean it when he says awful things—although in this case Sydney secretly agrees with him. Mom is weak. Sydney can see pain written across her mother’s plain face. She’s not strong enough. She doesn’t deserve him. She’s ready for him to die.

  Sydney thinks that she’d also die if it was a choice between that and spending life with Mom.

  And suddenly she finds herself back on the stage in the Tomb. Turn, turn, turn. Tinkling bells and plinking piano with underlying bass and an occasional bright burst of noise interrupting the music like a jump scare in a slasher movie. Tumor from astrocytes. Star-shaped cells, somehow lovely to picture, like marshmallows in sugary cereal. Short, controlled breaths. Don’t let the audience see how hard you’re working. Be the performing Sydney. Make it look effortless. Turn. Turn. Turn. Disinhibition, radiation, antipsychotics. Seizures, personality change, inoperable. Turn, turn, turn, faster now, because even though Sydney is strong, she doesn’t want to see the rest.

  She does anyway. Despite the dance, she loses the calm, becomes the small, sad Sydney, and is dragged back into the scene.

  She’s in the room with Daddy when it happens. It’s been two weeks since her younger brother, Noah, was born. Daddy was too weak to hold him, and he didn’t seem interested anyway. Sydney understands. Why bother getting to know a baby you won’t raise? Eunice is with Mom and the baby in a different room. Sydney visits them seldom. She wants to be with Daddy. She’s always enjoyed being alone with him, getting him all to herself, but for some reason, even when it’s just the two of them in a room together lately, she feels another presence. Something she can’t see, watching them both.

  As if this creepy feeling weren’t enough, the last few days have been bad. Although Daddy was writing and drawing a lot, he no longer has the strength. He stares into space, his breath ragged, and Sydney stands beside him and holds his hand. He doesn’t seem aware of her, seems trapped in his own mind, alone with himself. But then his hand suddenly tightens on hers. He takes a sharp breath, as though experiencing so
me great pain.

  He turns to look at her, his eyes aware, and present, and terrified.

  Eunice was right.

  Daddy? she says. It’s the only answer she can scrape together under the sharp focus of his gaze, harsher than any spotlight.

  Margaret, he says.

  Sydney. It’s Sydney, Daddy.

  The drawings. The designs. It’s all there. You have to, he says.

  Have to what? Sydney says.

  It’s seen us. It has our scent.

  Daddy closes his eyes. His breathing is deep and untroubled. She calls to him a few more times before she notices that his chest has stopped moving altogether.

  Turn, turn, turn. Sydney’s back on the stage at the Tomb and running short of breath herself. She slows down into a Vaganova fourth arabesque, and then she’s at her father’s funeral with Eunice, Mom, Mr. and Mrs. Ransom, all the neighbors, Granny and Granddad Byrne, Grandma Turner, all of them gathered around an open grave while a minister speaks over Daddy’s casket. Noah is crying and Mom hands him to Sydney, asks her to take him away until he quiets down. Sydney wants to ask why Grandma Turner can’t take him, but she knows why. The old woman looks awful, skin waxy, eyes sunken. In another six months she’ll overdose on sleeping pills. Everyone will say it’s an accident and know that it wasn’t.

  But that’s later. Now Sydney carries Noah across the cemetery, saying all the worst words she knows in her softest, most soothing voice: Fucker. Asshole. Bitch. Motherfucker. Shit. Goddammit. She studies each tombstone she passes. They all look sharp and hard. How easy it would be to shut Noah up forever. No one would miss him except maybe Eunice, but Eunice likes everyone anyway. She probably misses her snot after she blows her nose.

  Sydney doesn’t drop Noah. She walks him back and forth, pats his back, swears at him and rages at her mother for sending her away in the middle of her goodbye to Daddy. It’s the latest in a long series of Mom’s failures. She’s selling the house and the family is moving into an apartment like poor people. They’re losing everything.