Monsters

by David Alexander Robertson

  “But you wanted me to burn that gun?” Jayne cocked her head to one side.

  “Yeah, but that was different. Scott was about to shoot me. You saved my life. And Eva’s.”

  “Anyways, I was helping so…” Jayne’s tongue stuck out as she waved her hand over the plate and the food began to steam “…I like doin’ jobs.”

  “You helped a lot.”

  “I know. I did real good.”

  “Yeah, you did. Really good.”

  “Like that! Ta-da!”

  Cole took the plate back. The food was much more appealing now. He took a forkful of eggs. “I think I just missed you. I didn’t really need you to do this.”

  Jayne just sat there, kicking her legs, smiling.

  “You’re not hiding anymore?” Cole asked after another bite of food.

  Jayne shook her head. “I don’t need to hide at daytime.”

  “So where’ve you been?”

  “With my friends, silly.”

  What about me? Cole thought, but he felt stupid for feeling jealous, needy, about where a ghost spent her time. Was it stupid to just want to spend time with her? But still, maybe she could help…

  “Jayney…” Cole eased in, not sure of how to ask without scaring her. She’s a kid, don’t forget.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you remember when you were watching the folder for me? And what you said took it?”

  Jayne’s bright flame dimmed. “Yeah. The boogeyman.”

  “Do you think…?” Cole put his fork down and took her non-burning hand. “Could you just tell me what it looked like?”

  “I don’t want to tell you about that.” Jayne took her hand away from Cole, put it in her lap, and looked away from him. She started kicking her legs faster, like she was thinking about running away, right now, to anywhere.

  Hiding.

  “Jayney, I saw it, too,” Cole whispered.

  Jayne looked over at Cole quickly with a short burst of flames, like lighter fluid sprayed on a campfire. “You did?!”

  “Last night,” Cole said. “I just want to know what it is, and why it’s here.”

  “But I don’t know stuff like that, Coley,” Jayne whined. “It’s just scary, that’s all.”

  “I know it is.” Cole patted his hand on the table. Jayne looked at his hand, looked away, looked at it again, then slowly put her hand in his again. “Just…have you seen it again? Do you know where it is, where it comes from?”

  “Why would I know where it comes from when I’m tryin’ ta hide from it, stupid!?” Jayne’s flames grew brighter and she took her hand away again.

  “Okay, sorry.” Cole leaned back. He crossed his arms and looked at the floor. He counted the tiles. One, two, three… “Where is it, when you hide from it?”

  Jayne had her arms crossed, too. She just sat there for a while, tight-lipped. She glanced at him every few seconds. Finally, she said, “All over the place because he goes everywhere. Even talks to people, sometimes, when I’m peeking out at ‘im in the day. He even talks to himself. He’s so weird when he’s not bein’ scary.”

  “What? Talks to people? What are you talking about?”

  “Yeah. With his mouth, okay?”

  “This is so confusing.” Cole knocked his head against his plate, which sent a clatter through the restaurant.

  “Are you okay, Coley?”

  “Yeah.” Cole’s face was muffled, half against the plate and half against the table. He realized that his forehead was in his eggs. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you mad at me?” Jayne’s feet stopped kicking.

  “No. Just frustrated at life.”

  “Oh.” Jayne paused for a moment. Then she said, recapturing her joy, “Well I’m a good listener, you know.”

  Cole sighed deeply. “Well, if you can help me figure out why there’s a scary boogeyman running around having conversations with people during the day, why patients in the clinic look sick again, why we aren’t allowed into the clinic, and why the research facility is being guarded by soldiers or some shit—”

  Jayne gasped. “Coley!”

  “—or some stuff, sorry, and oh yeah, where the hell are the files?” It wasn’t even worth mentioning the fire at the mall. That seemed a pittance compared to everything else.

  “Heck…well, I like puzzles,” Jayne said. “You know what I do? I just start at the outside parts and then I start putting together the inside parts.”

  “Yeah?” Cole asked. “So what are the outside parts in my life?”

  “Just the easiest stuff,” Jayne said. “The straight sides, and then all the other stuff you just find how it fits.”

  “Outside in,” Cole summarized.

  “Yeah, like that.”

  Cole could feel the yolk against his forehead. He stubbornly stayed face down. He wanted to lift his head, but he was simply too frustrated. If he could stay there forever, and just hide, like Jayne—only from everything—he would. Also, he was embarrassed by how his forehead would look once he came up for air. Outside in. What was easiest? What made the most sense? The whole diner seemed quiet. Cole could hear Jayne’s fire crackling. He could feel her warmth. The door opened and somebody entered. Simultaneously, Cole heard a poof and smelled sulphur. Jayne left, and her warmth did, too. Cole didn’t want to lift his head now, not until whoever came in had walked safely past.

  But the footsteps stopped at Cole’s booth.

  “Sleeping?”

  Reynold. Great.

  “No, just…” Cole rambled off potential responses, settling on “…school.”

  Cole felt Reynold sit down across from him.

  “School can be tough. Grade twelve. It really challenges you as you move on to, well…wherever it is you’re going after this,” Reynold said.

  Cole patted around at the far side of the table for some napkins. Reynold handed him a bunch. Cole lifted his head slightly, hiding his forehead from view, and wiped off as much egg as he could. Finally, he lifted his head all the way.

  “You’ve got, just…” Reynold pointed to the upper right area of Cole’s face. Cole wiped at it broadly. “…there you go, son.”

  Cole put down the napkin. “Thanks.”

  “School must be even harder away from home, huh?”

  “This is my home,” Cole said. He picked up a piece of toast, one of the only pieces of food not impacted by his forehead. He took a bite, then put it down.

  “Of course it is. I was just saying, it must weigh on you. You must have friends in the city, your aunt and kókom, of course.”

  “Actually they’re here too, now, so I’ll probably be staying for a while.”

  “Fantastic news.” Reynold reached towards Cole’s plate, stopping about an inch from his toast. “Do you mind?”

  Cole shook his head.

  Reynold picked up the toast, took a big bite, and then replaced it. Cole stared at the crescent-shaped mouth-mark Reynold left.

  “I’m starving,” Reynold said. “The election’s been so busy, honestly sometimes I just forget to eat.”

  Cole pushed the plate towards Reynold. Half-eaten, half-smushed. “Well, be my guest.” He didn’t want to take one more bite now.

  “You’re too kind,” Reynold said.

  “I’m just not hungry,” Cole said.

  Reynold took another bite, then he clapped the crumbs from his fingers, and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “Lucy tells me she had a nice chat with you.”

  “Yeah, first day. I didn’t know that she was your daughter at first.”

  Reynold pointed at Cole quickly and nodded his head approvingly. “That says a lot about you, son. That you’d show my daughter kindness without knowing who she was.”

  “It wasn’t kindness, really, Mr. McCabe. I just talked to—”

  “She can be a handful, I know that,” Reynold said, “but she’s my girl, and I love her fiercely.”

  “Of course you do, sir.”

  “Chip off the block, too, that one. Her moth
er…” Reynold shook his head to one side. “Anyway,” he got up from the table and straightened his jacket. He stepped towards Cole, stopping uncomfortably close. “I just saw you while walking by and thought I should come in and check on you.”

  “Thanks,” Cole said again. “I mean, I did see you last night. Not much has changed.”

  Reynold leaned over and put a hand on Cole’s shoulder. “Still, if there’s anything I can do for you, just let me know, okay?”

  “I will.”

  Reynold started to walk out, but he stopped by the door, now behind Cole’s back. Cole kept staring straight ahead.

  “I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through. Not only being away from home, but to have seen your friends…” Reynold sighed dramatically. “I just can’t believe I never saw that in Scott. Ashley, Alex…such a tragedy. To think, it could’ve been my girl, you know? They were just innocent children, those two.”

  Cole nodded. Saw Ashley’s face, Alex’s. Memories flooded into his mind.

  “And then for him to have tried to kill you as well…”

  Cole thought of all the times Ashley checked in on him, just to see how he was doing down in the city. Coming to see his grade eight graduation. Alex, holding Cole’s hand as they walked to her house. How her skin was cold, but he felt warm. Alex, tough little Alex, giving him a soft kiss against the cheek. But…

  “At any rate, please. If there’s anything, Cole. And do tell your auntie and your kókom hello for me, would you? They’re perfectly welcome to vote on Sunday, too.”

  “What about Maggie?” Cole asked.

  Reynold stopped. Cole looked down. He could feel Reynold staring at him.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You said, ‘Ashley, Alex…’ but what about Maggie?” Cole asked.

  Reynold cleared his throat. “Yes, of course Maggie. All of them. I just figured those were the two closest to you. Maggie’s death is no less important. Naturally.”

  “Naturally,” Cole said.

  “Do you have something to say to me, son?”

  Cole remembered Lauren kicking his shin, like he shouldn’t mess with Reynold. He paused just long enough after saying, “No,” that Cole thought it was clear he had more to say.

  Just not now.

  “Good,” Reynold said after his own pause, then the door opened and Reynold left.

  Cole settled back into his seat. The plate in front of him looked like some weird art piece, not breakfast. Reynold’s bite mark. Cole’s forehead mark. The scant collection of diner-goers was looking at Cole, maybe because they’d anticipated a bit more than what had happened between him and Reynold. The couple. Victor. He and Cole met eyes. Finally. Cole got up from his booth and walked across the room to Victor, who nodded an acknowledgement when Cole sat down.

  “Hi,” Cole said. “Victor, right?”

  “That’s right.” Victor took a sip of coffee.

  “I heard you saw something,” Cole said, not wanting to give Victor any clues as to what Cole had seen.

  Victor took one more quick sip of his coffee, then he pushed it to the side. “Out in Blackwood,” he said. “I was goin’ hunting. I didn’t care that nobody else was goin’ hunting. That’s how we live out here, how we used to live anyways. That’s when I seen it.”

  “Where did you see it?” Cole asked, maybe too quickly, too eagerly.

  Victor wasn’t fazed. “There was a clearing out there. I seen it in there…”

  It must’ve been the same clearing where Scott had set up his camp, and where Jayne had seen the boogeyman. Where Cole and Eva and Brady had been just two nights ago.

  “…I thought it was an animal at first, feeding on another animal. Seen that before. Then I seen it wasn’t an animal it was feedin’ on…”

  Victor got lost in the memory. Cole tried to pull him back. “What was it eating?”

  “Looked like a…a human.”

  “What? Nobody said…”

  “Nobody gets far enough to listen,” Victor said. “So, I came across it, and when it seen me, it got up, started after me. Growlin’. Runnin’ real fast. It moved like a human, but I never seen its face. Just its eyes, y’know. Those eyes…”

  “Yeah?”

  “…red. Like they was on fire or somethin’. Heard it behind me all the way through the forest, all the way outta there, until I ran right inta here.”

  “What do you think it was?”

  “I’m not goin’ ta tell you what I think it was. I’m not sayin’ that name, kid.”

  “Upayokwitigo.”

  “Hmph. Could be kid. Could be.”

  “I saw it, too.”

  Victor picked his coffee up, sipped it, and put it down, all without taking his eyes off Cole, assessing whether Cole was lying or not. But he must’ve seen something in Cole’s eyes, because after a tense moment, Victor nodded knowingly.

  “You made it out alive, anyways,” he said. “You made it.”

  “Yeah,” Cole said, “I made it. What do you think it wants?”

  Victor shrugged. “Power? Fear? To feed off us? Literally. That’s what it does, you know. It’s got this hunger that it can’t get rid of. Starts eatin’ bigger things from that hunger. And the hungrier it gets, the worse it gets. I know it’s bad, kid. I know it’s bad because it’s eatin’—”

  “Humans,” Cole said.

  “That’s right. Humans.”

  “How do we…how does somebody…stop it?”

  Victor chuckled and leaned back against his seat. “You goin’ ta stop it, there, kid? You thinkin’ about stoppin’ it?”

  “Maybe,” Cole said.

  Victor got deadly serious. “It’ll rip you to shreds. You’d be dessert, you.”

  “You sound pretty tough for a guy hiding in a diner.”

  “I’d kill it,” Victor snapped. “If I had another chance I’d kill that monster.”

  “How?”

  Victor raised his index finger, reached across the table, and pushed it right in the middle of Cole’s chest. “Like that, kid. Just like that.”

  15

  MWACH

  COLE DEEMED IT SAFE TO RETURN TO SCHOOL after lunch following his outburst, and just kept away from the gym. It appeared as though his altercation with Choch had gone over well with the student body, which was a nice surprise. He noticed more smirks and fewer scowls, and he even heard the odd, “Person-makers!” shouted randomly. By the time Cole had reached his locker, the only thing he had left to worry about was the reception he’d get from Brady, Eva, and Michael. They were there, switching books at their lockers, from Biology to Cree. Cole got his out as well, before saying anything to his friends. The Cree textbook had been the only new one provided by Choch—a spiral-bound Wounded Sky Cree dictionary and phrase book.

  All of them with their textbooks now, they stood in a kind of square, each at one corner, exchanging looks and not saying a word. Cole wanted it to end, but he wasn’t sure what to say. Were they mad at him? Had he been that out of line? He started to replay their conversation, (argument?) in his mind. It boiled down to this: he’d not told Eva about hanging out with Pam and, seemingly worse, he had gone off to look for the files without them. Oh, and he survived electrocution. Cole couldn’t think of doing anything other than apologizing. He felt like he was good at two things and two things only, sometimes: saying sorry and breaking locks (or door handles).

  “Look,” Cole started into his apology, but Eva suddenly lunged at him and gave him a huge hug.

  “Oh, Cole, we love you! We’re sorry for ganging up on you!” she said jokingly, like she was talking to a baby. Cole wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but decided while still in Eva’s arms that maybe he deserved to get talked to like a baby.

  “Yeah, friend,” Brady said, without baby talk, and made it a three-person hug.

  “Just don’t go off without us again, okay?” Eva said.

  “And we know you can’t tell us everything, but when it comes to the Pam thing…” Brady said
.

  “I know,” Cole said.

  “I mean, if we were around, maybe at least you wouldn’t have passed out on the front steps, right?” Eva said.

  “Maybe,” Cole said.

  They were all huddled, touching foreheads, but Cole looked up because he noticed one person missing from the hug, and he couldn’t believe it but he wanted Michael in there more than Eva right now.

  “Yeah, that’s not happening,” Michael said, but he didn’t say it like he was mad or like he hated Cole, just that he wasn’t a hugger.

  Eventually, they let go of each other, and this coincided with the bell. Lunch was over, and classes were starting.

  “How’s your Cree?” Brady asked.

  “Ha.” That was all Cole could muster. He felt like he couldn’t even say “Ha” in Cree, or if there was even a word for it. “I haven’t spoken Cree, really, since I left Wounded Sky.”

  “It’ll come back,” Eva assured him.

  “Say yes and don’t even think about it,” Brady said.

  “Ehe?” Cole said.

  “You sure about that?” Eva chuckled.

  “Not now,” Cole said.

  “Relax,” Brady said, “you’re right.”

  “Ekosi,” Michael said.

  “Way to go,” Cole said.

  “See?” Eva said.

  “Ehe, yes.” Brady gave Cole a pat on the back. “It’s like riding a bike, see?”

  “That’s, like, the easiest thing I’ve done since coming back,” Cole said.

  “Well, when you keep your gang on the sidelines…” Eva said.

  “Trust me, you did not want to be around last night,” Cole said.

  “Hey,” Eva said, “I’ve been in it pretty deep with you, Cole. Game recognize game.”

  Cole laughed. It felt normal, at least for right now, between them. “Fair enough.”

  “Part of me wishes I was there to see Scott get the hell beaten out of him,” Brady said. “For Ashley. But…part of me thinks that violence for violence…it wouldn’t have brought Ash back.”

  “Is it getting any easier?” Cole asked.

  “Really curious, or do you think I’m still mad at you?”

  “Can it be both? Either way, I care, man.”

  “I suppose the best way to put it is that I know I’ll be okay, even if I’m not, get it?” Brady said.