Monsters

by David Alexander Robertson

  “Where’d you get that?” Panic fought to get out despite the medication. Cole could feel it thumping from inside, banging on his ribs for release.

  “I lost that the other night.” Cole tried to touch the bag, but Jerry took it away.

  “Oh, you mean the night of the other fire at the mall?” Jerry took out the plastic bag again, and shook it in the air like a bell.

  “This really doesn’t look good for you, Cole,” Lauren said.

  “No, I heard him leave, he wasn’t gone that long,” his auntie said to the constables.

  “Maybe not, but Cole’s our number one suspect right now,” Lauren said. “Our only suspect.”

  “We need to look around,” Jerry said.

  “For what?” Auntie Joan asked.

  Jerry looked at Lauren for some help. Lauren just shrugged, like: you go ahead. Jerry gave it a shot. “We’re looking for stuff Cole might’ve used. An acc…accel…”

  “Oh my God, Jerry, it’s like you’re reading Green Eggs and Ham,” Lauren tried to say under her breath, but it came out clearly. She took over. “We want to see if there’s anything here that could’ve been used as an accelerant for the fire—”

  “And matches,” Jerry added proudly.

  “Yeah Jerry, and matches. Look, Joan,” Lauren said, “if Cole really didn’t do this…I mean, we could get a warrant.”

  “No, go ahead and look around,” Auntie Joan said. “We’ve got nothing to hide.”

  Lauren nodded at her. “We’ll try not to be too long.”

  Cole hovered around his room while Jerry and Lauren started to look around. It probably wasn’t a good idea. Watching the constables look through his stuff made him look guilty. That is, if he could’ve possibly looked guiltier than he did now, first person at the fire, and the whole community there to see it. Who would’ve found his toque and placed it there? Probably the same person that called and said they’d seen him at the mall.

  After Cole’s bedroom, Lauren and Jerry went from room to room the same way, with Jerry tossing things all over the place and Lauren (compensating for her acting-boss) being as tidy as possible. Jerry didn’t even look like he was trying to find anything. He was just pulling things out of drawers, books out of book shelves, cutlery out of drawers. At one point, he mentioned to Lauren that they were finally doing some real police work. Lauren shot back that it was amazing what you could do when you were actually awake.

  By the time they got to the last room, Cole’s father’s office, they had been searching for over an hour. His dad’s office had lots of stuff in it. Cole’s dad, Donald, had been really smart, and really disorganized. Books upon books were crammed onto shelves that lined the walls. Stacks of papers, files, and notebooks were piled on top of his desk so the surface wasn’t visible anywhere. Lauren and Jerry looked through any place Cole could’ve hidden an accelerant. Circled the room in some kind of weird dance. Crossed the room, walked around the perimeter, almost bumped into each other a few times. Cole started to count floorboards, from one end of the room to the other. Back to front, left to right.

  One floorboard seemed to depress deeper than the other boards each time Lauren, and especially Jerry, stepped on it. It let out a creak, the same one Cole tried to avoid when he’d sneak into his dad’s room. Each time they stepped over it, he hoped they wouldn’t notice and pull it up. He was sure there was something underneath it. His mind began to race.

  After Jerry and Lauren’s search was over, Auntie Joan, Cole, and his grandmother, followed the constables to the front door.

  “Not even a single match, huh?” his auntie confirmed as they stepped outside.

  “It’s very possible he hid stuff elsewhere,” Jerry said. “Not like we don’t have enough to go on right now, anyway.”

  “Anybody see him start a fire?” his auntie asked.

  “We’ll be talking to everybody who was there tonight, who saw him at the Fish,” Lauren said. “See what they all have to say.”

  “Don’t go anywhere, kid,” Jerry said.

  “I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

  “Are you okay?” his auntie asked him after the constables had left.

  They were all standing in the hallway, and it had been quiet for several minutes.

  “We know you didn’t do this,” his grandmother assured.

  “Everybody else will think I did,” Cole said.

  “Not everybody,” his auntie said.

  “I can think of two people who wouldn’t.” Cole pictured Eva and Brady. Brady wouldn’t even know about the fire, though. By now, he’d be at the cabin, deep within Blackwood Forest. “Maybe three.” Cole added Pam to the group, hopefully.

  “Five,” his grandmother said.

  “Against how many?” Cole took a deep breath, and thought about something he could control. Something he could do, now. “You know what? I’m exhausted. I need to just sleep.”

  “This is why we came home, nephew,” his auntie said. “You know that, right?”

  “Right.” Cole went back to his bedroom, where he lay down and pretended to sleep. He waited until he heard his grandmother and his auntie go to bed, too. Waited until they were actually asleep. Then, he went back to his dad’s office.

  He stood in the middle of the room, looking at the floorboard, waiting for his dad to catch him and kick him out. He’d done the same thing the day after his dad had died. He’d gone into the office, sat at his dad’s desk, and waited, prayed, for his dad to come find him, yell at him, and kick him out.

  He sat at his dad’s desk for hours that day.

  Cole got onto his knees and felt around the floorboard. He pushed at it and ran his fingers along the edges. It definitely felt different than any other area of the floor, but it was still nailed down. If his dad had been hiding anything underneath, whenever he took it out, he pulled out the nails, and then when he put it back, he nailed the floorboard back again.

  Cole couldn’t find a hammer. He tried to get a grip on the edges of it in order to pry it open, but wasn’t able to. He got a knife from the kitchen as quietly as he could. No use. The knife was too fat to wedge between the cracks. That left Cole with one option. Punch the floorboard and break it open. He got the comforter from his room, and placed it over top of the floorboard to muffle the sound. Then, he raised his fist in the air, and struck down as hard as he could. He stifled a scream as he felt his arm re-fracture.

  The sound wasn’t catastrophic, but it was still loud. He waited a minute to see if he’d woken anybody up. He listened for movement. When he was sure it was safe, he slipped the comforter away from the floorboard, and then pulled the broken halves from the floor. Inside, there was a black carrying case. Cole pulled it out, using his good arm, and opened it up. An old laptop.

  Unsurprisingly, the laptop was dead. Luckily, the power cord was in the case. He found a power outlet by the desk, and plugged it in. He waited as the machine whirred to life. His excitement faded quickly. The laptop was password protected. Cole tried three different passwords—his mom’s name, his name, his birthdate—and they were all wrong. The computer locked him out after his three failed password attempts. He slammed the laptop shut.

  “What do I do now?” he asked.

  The answer came quickly.

  21

  PAM

  THE LIGHTS WERE OFF IN THE SCHOOL’S COMPUTER LAB, both in the main room and a little side office, and all the monitors were off as well. There was no familiar, steely glow given off by computer screens in the dark. Still, he walked through the lab and into the office to be sure. You never knew with gamers. Maybe she’d fallen asleep there, and he could wake her up.

  But Pam wasn’t there. Just the suggestion of Pam. An empty can of Coke resting beside the keyboard. A small bag of baby carrots beside the can. She had an awesome chair, and Cole didn’t know how she had swung it. It was like she was either going to hack into a website or command the U.S.S. Enterprise.

  (Choch here. I know it’s been awhile, folks.
I’m interrupting, on one hand, just because I miss you. But really, I wanted to add, and I don’t usually give Mr. Robertson much credit, that you should appreciate what he just sacrificed for art. You see, he’s a Star Wars fan, but the chair reference required a Star Trek connection. I have to tell you, it was tough. Whatever you give the book on Goodreads, just know that.)

  Cole took off his backpack and sat down. Rather, he sunk into the chair, and into a deep and satisfying oblivion. He told himself that he was staying in the chair because he was waiting on the off-chance that Pam showed up, but really it was so damn comfortable. And he was so damn tired.

  “Harper.”

  Cole opened his eyes. The lights were on. He sat up and checked the time. 8:38 a.m. He’d fallen asleep.

  “Hey.” Cole rubbed sleep from his eyes, got up from the chair. “Sorry.”

  “All good.” Pam sat down, rolled up to the desk, and flicked her computer on. Cole watched as it fired up. She opened up a black screen with green letters and digits, like she was in The Matrix, and started typing. Cole wasn’t sure what to make of that. He’d managed to sneak his way through Wounded Sky, and to the school, without encountering one person. He’d left his grandmother and auntie sleeping. Pam was the first person he’d seen. Did she hate him?

  “Are you about to hack into the mainframe? Can you change my Land-Based Education grade to an A? No, B. I don’t want it to seem too obvious.”

  “Oh, you’re funny now, are you?” Pam kept typing. Faster than ever. “Just hang on a sec, okay?”

  Was that annoyance? Was she annoyed at him because she thought he was some arsonist? Because she thought he’d gone and burned down the diner, the spot they had their first date? He said, “Okay,” with his tail between his legs. He sat on the desk behind her and waited, with the laptop bag hugged between his hand and his hip. He waited for an uncomfortably long time. Cole wasn’t sure if she was doing actual things, or if she was intentionally making him squirm. Either way, with one last, pronounced keystroke she finally finished, and swivelled her chair around to face him.

  “Sorry about that,” she said breathlessly, like she’d been running a marathon.

  “What was that?” Cole pointed at the computer screen.

  “Oh, that?” Pam turned the monitor off, then faced Cole once again. She waved her hand once over her head and made a whooosh sound.

  “Over my head.”

  “Slightly,” Pam said, “sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” Cole sighed enormously.

  “Rough day at the office, or what?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Well, if I were you, and thank God I’m not…”

  “Rough day at the office,” Cole agreed.

  “If it makes any difference, I’m sure not all the kids think you’re the worst person alive?”

  “That bad?”

  “Know how I said to join the group chat?” Pam didn’t wait for a response. “Don’t.”

  “Yeah, that sounds pretty damn bad.”

  “In their defence, and not saying that I believe it, you were at the diner before everybody else, and by all accounts, your clothes were all burned up,” she said.

  Cole looked at his shoes. “When I saw the fire from my window, all I could think of was the school fire. I felt like I was back there. So I ran there like I could, I don’t know, run back in time. Ran into the Fish in case…”

  “Nobody got hurt,” Pam assured, “except…” she grabbed his arm, turned his forearm around, inspected it carefully “…people said your arm was, like, in an S shape. Tristan pushed you or something?”

  Cole took his arm back, covered his forearm with his other hand. “Probably just the shadows or something. I think it’s just sprained.”

  “Oh, right.” Cole wasn’t sure if Pam sounded convinced or not. He thought not, but she didn’t keep at him about it. “So, wanna know what I’d do? Because it’ll just get worse. I mean, there’re kids on here saying they saw you set the fire, all that.”

  “I wish that surprised me.”

  “I’d just ignore all this bullshit and concentrate on the people who’re also ignoring all this bullshit,” Pam said. “Those are your real friends anyway.”

  Cole slid off the desk, walked over to Pam, crouched down beside her. “Thanks.”

  They looked at each other for a moment.

  “That’s screwed up, though, about the Fish. How am I ever going to accurately relive the first time we hung out outside of school?”

  “I think they should fix it just the way it was,” Cole said. “I bet they can fix it like that.”

  “Maybe by that time you might actually ask me to hang out.”

  Cole rested his forehead against the armrest of her chair, then lifted his head back up. “I’m sorry. Things have been so crazy. It’s not that…”

  “You don’t have to, you know. I can take it.”

  “No, it’s not that I don’t want to. Really, I’ve had, like, no time to even breathe.”

  “Well, there’s a million things to do here, so…” Cole still had the laptop bag clutched against his body and, more and more, Pam was noticing it. Her eyes were darting back and forth between him and the bag. Cole wasn’t subtle. He may as well have been carrying a baby. “But this isn’t a social call, is it?”

  “Not exactly, sorry,” he said. “But I was glad I had to come see you for this.”

  “Not just any geek?”

  “You’re my favourite geek, and also not a geek.”

  “I like being a geek,” she said. “It’s all good. Plus, lucky for us, I’m kind of the only one. Whaddya got?”

  Cole sat on the floor and flipped the bag onto his lap. He pulled out the laptop and handed it to Pam. “I found this in my dad’s office last night.”

  “What are you, trying to get some pictures off it or something?” she asked.

  “I mean, it’d be awesome if there were old pictures of me and him,” he said, “but I think there’s stuff on here that’s…different than that.”

  “Files-related?” She placed the laptop onto her table, shoving her keyboard to the side, and flipped it open.

  “Maybe,” Cole said. “Maybe answers of any kind, I guess.”

  “Ahhh,” the login screen popped up, “you got booted out.”

  “I tried, like, three passwords and that was it.”

  “You want me to break into it.”

  “Could you?”

  Pam locked her fingers together, and extended her arms out, with her palms facing away. Her knuckles cracked in unison. “I thought this was going to be a challenge.”

  Cole pumped his fist. “Thank you.”

  “Is this super urgent, or…”

  “I’d put it at the super urgent level, yeah. But, just, however long it takes.”

  “I’m totally cool with skipping ELA, so…urgent it is.”

  Cole leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. He was surprised by the kiss as much as she was. He wished he hadn’t done it, because he felt stupid, and at the same time he wished that he’d tried two inches to the left, on the lips. But now didn’t seem like the time.

  “You’ve got to buy me dinner first, Harper.” Pam turned towards the laptop, stared at the screen like she was meditating. “Or at least carrots and Coke.”

  “Sorry.”

  He saw Pam smile a half-smile, and then she flipped him the bird. “Get the hell out of here. I’ve got work to do.”

  When Cole saw his locker, he fell back against the opposite wall. Rumours travelled fast in Wounded Sky. His locker had been beaten to a pulp, probably by a baseball bat or two. On what Cole could see of the metal, there were words spray painted all over. Burn in hell, Harper. Eat shit & die. Fake. He gave himself a minute or two to digest what he was seeing, and to calm himself. The pills were out of his system now.

  He approached his locker and pulled it open.

  Textbooks and notebooks had been ripped up, defaced with more colourful language. His gym
clothes had been torn apart, and his new basketball shoes had been slashed with a knife. Cole picked up the shoes and stared at them. He stared at them for what they’d meant when he first received them, and what they meant now. He dropped them to the floor. Then he dropped to the floor himself. He took his bottle out and slipped a pill into his mouth. He chewed it up and let the morsels dissolve under his tongue, staying there for several minutes, unmoving, even as students began to file into the halls. They opened lockers near him and whispered to others when they saw him, angry words, colourful language, like they were reading the words on his locker, on his textbooks, on his notebooks.

  Cole just stayed there, counting one floor tile over and over again.

  One. One. One. One. One.

  “I mean, what’s really sad about this, to me, is the whole counting thing. There’s something that tugs at my heartstrings, like when I watch Armageddon. You know, the part where the kid sees his dad on TV and asks his mom who he is, and his mom says—”

  “Not now, Choch.” Cole didn’t look up.

  “I thought you would’ve seen the movie, CB. You like watching old movies, don’t you? Oh, and the other time I always cry is when Bruce Willis calls Ben Affleck ‘son.’ I can’t even…”

  “No, I’ve seen it. I’m just not in the mood right now. You’ve seen my locker, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” Choch said, and then he recited all the words on the locker to Cole out loud. When he finished, he said to himself, “Not really altogether imaginative now, are they? Just vulgar.”

  “Could you not join in on the chorus?” But Cole couldn’t hear any whispers anymore, or footsteps, or lockers opening and shutting. He looked up to see that every student in the halls was frozen in time. “Oh.”

  “Just thought we needed some alone time,” Choch said.

  Cole might’ve been surprised if he hadn’t seen this trick before. “It’d be way worse if it weren’t so familiar,” Cole said, referencing the graffiti on his locker.

  “At least they were using full sentences, and not text-speak. That would have been even more upsetting,” Choch said.