by Rob Thurman
“And I don’t?” I’d questioned, curious but not upset.
“Some, I think. My limits…when it suits you or you remember or when you think not breaking them will upset me instead of help us both.” He hadn’t said, but I’d thought then that he was thinking that I hadn’t been born with any of my own, not like the kids at school. “Unlike the kids in your class who focus on everything like the squirrels, you think like a lion. Remember what I told you when they wouldn’t let you take gym anymore? About how they told you to win the games and then gave you rules that made winning harder? It was conflicting, them telling you to win then telling you how you couldn’t.” I’d remembered. Bite off a chunk of some kid’s ear and people get upset for no reason. But I had won. I’d gone with their first assignment there: win. I’d ignored the second: rules. Rules screwed up winning.
Screwed up everything.
“It’s the same here,” Niko had said, shaking the pen for more ink. “You see one thing and you focus on that one thing. That’s why you always win. Lions don’t have to understand squirrels. They eat them.” He’d smiled then; I remembered it plain as could be. “But try ignoring them first instead, all right?” He had given me a comforting squeeze of the shoulder. “Don’t worry about them or the teacher. You’re fine the way you are. If everyone was the same, life would be boring. And I told your teacher that we’re Rom, we worship Sara-Kali, and our religious beliefs require we keep our hair long.”
“Is that true?”
“I have no idea, but neither will she.” He’d ruffled my too-long hair. “Besides, lions need a mane.”
A long time ago that had been, but nothing had changed. I knew I didn’t need friends, couldn’t have friends really, and rules still pissed me off.
“Marcus isn’t my friend. He’s in my class, that’s all.” I finished up the popcorn in the bag on my lap. “He said he left his skateboard on the stairs of their house and his grandfather tripped over it, fell, broke his neck and died.” Sad and tragic. That didn’t fail to get to Nik, and I was an asshole to use it…but I did. “Now he sees him all the time. He thinks his grandfather blames him. And Marcus is okay. He’s not a very good liar”—all of Sophia’s get would know a bad liar from minute one—“and he seems the kind of scared you can’t fake.”
I swiveled on the couch, threw my legs across Nik’s lap, leaned back against the ratty pillow, and crossed my arms. “What if they are real? What if someday we have to kill someone bad”—could be a murdering child molester who hadn’t learned to leave kids alone, particularly leave me alone—“and they become a ghost? You always say better safe than sorry and cover all our bases.”
And when it comes to killing, like monsters, there can’t be enough base covering.
The neighbor we’d had three years ago, the serial killer one. Junior. With some help, we’d taken care of him…or Nik had, and permanently. There were no ghosts, but there had been empty bases. Things we hadn’t planned for ahead of time, hadn’t imagined, ones that had left us with visible and invisible scars, and had almost turned us into ghosts ourselves. We’d lived though it, scars or not. I didn’t blame the Nik or myself of way back then. Who would plan for a Christian chubby serial killer who lived fifteen feet from you? No blame, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t learned. Think of everything, because everything could be out there. No, there were no ghosts with him, but there’d been worse. There had been things I hadn’t told Nik and wouldn’t tell him. I’d seen a Grendel cut a hole in the world and I’d heard it speak to me. I’d understood what it whispered in my ear, the threat and the promise.
After that, I’d known there was nothing horrible enough I that couldn’t imagine it.
There were also nightmares. Not being able to talk. “Short-termed mutism,” Niko had called it. “Post-traumatic stress disorder.” The less words I had, the more he’d had. Then there was not being able to be more than four feet from my brother, bedwetting, sucking my thumb. And more. But eleven-year-olds bounced back fast. It passed and there were no ghosts that time. Who knew how often that might be the case?
That’s why you had to plan. Yeah, who would plan for that Christian chubby serial killer who lived next door?
Me.
I did. Since then, I planned for everything I could possibly dream up. Were there vampires? Maybe. Were there werewolves? Probably. Were there ventriloquists’ dummies who came to life at night and killed you in your sleep? Niko would say highly unlikely…I said absolutely. That was too terrifying to not exist. If you had to kill someone, it was the only thing to do; what did you then do if ghosts were a real consequence? You should know. The world was out to get you, and you should at all times know what could happen before it did happen. No matter how insane it seemed.
Anticipation beat emancipation…when that emancipation would be from life itself.
“Someone bad,” he said slowly, aiming his gaze at the cracked ceiling. He wouldn’t, couldn’t talk about our late-not-so-great neighbor. He felt guilty, and if I tried to talk about it, he felt worse. I’d long stopped bringing it up. The darkness in his eyes was enough to have me shutting my mouth whenever I tried. The first few times I’d flown past the warning signs to keep talking and questioning had been enough for me to not ask about it again. There wasn’t anything in our monster-crazed lives Nik couldn’t handle…except this one thing. I let him have it. God knew he fucking deserved it and then some.
“Covering our bases,” he repeated as I wrapped my hand around his braid and tugged it to bring him back.
“Covering our bases,” I confirmed.
It was a good lesson taught by a bad teacher. Niko tried to forget him, but I didn’t. The lesson was too important.
Now I wanted all my bases covered. Grendels, werewolves, human monsters…anything could be out there. Most likely was out there. I needed to be ready for anything. Everything.
“First, we’re not going to kill any people, evil or not.” He was back, Nik. Our Bible-carrying, skinning-the-dead neighbor Junior was forgotten or pretended to be. I didn’t change my mind on that whole shitstorm and push. It had been worse for Niko. I knew if Junior had started to skin him first instead of me, I’d still be sucking my damn thumb. He didn’t want to remember, and that was fine with me. I’d carry the lesson for him.
“If there are evil people, I’ll take care of them,” he went on, which made me think he actually had forgotten what Junior had done to us, buried it deep and gone. “I’ll put them in the hospital, perhaps, but I’m big enough and know enough to not have to kill them.” That was true now. At seventeen, Nik was often mistaken for twenty. He was six feet tall and muscular but not bulky. Nik wouldn’t know a steroid if it bit him in his ass. His shoulders were broad and his muscles apparent, but lean and subtle in that catlike and dangerous manner people who fought for a living had—like his teachers. He’d been learning every kind of martial art he could since he was ten or twelve. He wouldn’t have to kill someone to be safe.
It wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t quite been there yet, a shame that hadn’t been true three years ago when our neighbor came knocking at our door. I yanked harder at Nik’s braid, glad he seemed to genuinely not remember. It was better for him. He was too good a brother to relive that; amnesia—his best friend.
“Second,” he was saying, “if your friend Marcus is that worried, although I am positive ghosts don’t exist, tell him to throw salt at it. There’s an extremely long history about salt representing purity, protection, and a talisman against the wicked. If you thought the devil was behind you, you’d throw salt over your left shoulder to drive him away. Naturally, like all mythology, you can’t know what’s true or not.” His lips quirked. “So Marcus should take the information with a grain of salt.”
That was Niko humor. I wondered if throwing a condiment like pepper or Tabasco sauce at him would cure that. Having neither one, I tried the wadded-up wrapper of my candy bar.
It didn’t work.
That night I lay in b
ed with a butcher knife from the kitchen stuffed under the mattress as always, and I thought about it. I had no problems with what I’d done to the invisible man and how much more I’d do. After all, I had those bases covered now. I knew the possible consequences and the cures for them. I turned over, tangled in my blanket. The blinds were down, but they were old and there were gaps.
Usually it was Grendels peering through those gaps in between the slats of the blinds. Tonight, it was Mr. Invisible, back lurking in the window, trying for a look. I didn’t know how he’d known Nik was already asleep and it was safe to show up, but he had. I met the hateful glisten of his eyes and yawned, bored. Let him go scare little girls. He didn’t scare me. I’d stood up to him once. I would again. Yawning again, I pulled the covers over my head while Niko shifted, breathing deeply on the mattress that rested on the floor beside mine. I dropped off in less than three minutes and slept like the dead.
That was as funny as me naming him the invisible man.
Recognize
I didn’t work at it. I let him come to me. To balls up, quit following me like a sheep after the shepherd I’d never be. He’d want me alone, of course. Had to be. He knew my schedule by now as well as I did, especially when I was home alone before Nik’s shift at the dojo ended. And it wasn’t long. He’d been getting closer all the time since my Chester the Molester insult, until several days later when there was his John Doe face staring at me through the glass inset in the front door; no window today. I waited for a knock, but there wasn’t one. I gave him a grin, showing my teeth as lions do, and opened the door for him anyway. “Want in? I’d ask if you want a Coke, but three more days until payday. No luxuries.”
He walked past me to stand by the couch, not far. Ten feet away, I thought. I closed the door and turned back to him. “So, no Coke. No snacks, either. Sorry. What else can I do for you?” I asked, obliging as anyone could hope. “I like to be helpful. Fucking helpful as they come. How can I help you?”
His face darkened and twisted with fury, Foam flecked his lips as his throat convulsed with words he couldn’t seem to push out. No smiles, ponies, or beer this go-round. Rude.
“Whoa.” I shoved my hands in the front pocket of my black hoodie. “I don’t see any pamphlets, but if you’ve come to talk about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I think you need to work on that yourself first. Anger-management shit, maybe?”
He glanced down at his stomach, still supported by his hand after all these days, then back up at me with eyes filled with the blackest of hatred, violence, and rage. He wasn’t so invisible with that rushing out of him. Anyone would see him now…or they wouldn’t. Maybe it was only me that could.
My hand. My knife. My intent.
His hand dropped from his abdomen. I could see through the long slice in his shirt the blood of a gushing artery and the bulge of spilling intestines that I’d last witnessed behind those park bushes. The hand rose to the height of my throat and formed into an accusing hook for choking, strangling, clawing, who knew? Nothing I was interested in, that I did know.
“Yep. I did that.” My grin widened, and if it was pleased, I didn’t mind. I’d done a good job. “Looks nasty, I know. The intestine thing wouldn’t have killed you, but the abdominal artery is a bitch. It gets you every time, or so I’ve heard.” I’d heard right. “You bleed out just like that.” I pulled out a hand to snap my fingers before pushing it back in my pocket. “And you did. I didn’t even have time to open one of your beers.” My grin was Cheshire-quality now, wide, wicked, and taking up most of my face.
What? It was a good memory. Worth a smile.
“And then I dumped your piece of shit dead body down a hole in that hellacious smelly dog food factory.” It had been a recessed tank in the floor with a rusty but movable container lid that could be pushed back in place. Now you see him, now you don’t, and a better grave than he deserved. No one would find him. No one would risk the stench to step foot in that place. “I spit on you first, though. For Mels. Then I went home, ate leftover pizza. It was pretty good. Meat-lovers’. And I didn’t think about you again, not once.”
The hand approached closer. I shook my head. “But you didn’t learn your lesson.”
And I’d forgotten mine. Imagine everything. Be prepared for anything. Cover your bases. But I was only human…okay, not only human. No claws, no red eyes, no silver needle teeth, but not human enough either to let this son of a bitch get away with what he’d done. And he…he was a monster who didn’t know the same when he was face-to-face with it.
“But you came back for more.” I studied his hand curiously as it inched closer. “Hell, I don’t think you could touch me, no matter how much you wanted to, much less kill me, or you would’ve already. But I’m just guessing. I don’t know anything about ghosts. My bad.” I rocked on my heels. “I take that back. I didn’t know anything. I now know two things. I know my brother doesn’t believe they exist. And I know that if he was wrong and they did exist, salt would purify and destroy them. Hopefully painfully.
“Seems stupid to me, that something I could swipe from the table of any restaurant could obliterate a monster,” I added. The hand stopped moving and a wary, uncertain, fearful shadow passed over Mr. Not-So-Invisible-Now’s face. Fear is plain to see. If he was alive, I would be able to smell it on him. Fear made him one of the herd he preyed on and easy to see from a mile away.
“But you never know what will happen until you try,” I said with the darkest of verbal warnings, the vicious cheerfulness of the last attempts to send him on his own way, and a belly full of voracious hope that he wouldn’t listen.
What fun would that be?
Hope, today, turned out to be my favorite emotion, and proved steadfast and true when the invisible man ignored the others. That was fine by me. If he didn’t want to move on to nothingness or Hell or whatever punishment waited for him, I had no problem giving him a push. If he didn’t want to pay, then he’d have to play. I loved to play because it wasn’t play at all, not the kind anyone else would know. It was winning. Surviving. I was a lion and that’s what lions did. It was a fact. And fact was fact as truth was truth.
“So, hey, asshole,” I told him with all the menace and predatory nature I had in me, which was more than he would have possessed in all the years of his whole fucking pathetic life, “let’s see what I can do to you.” He was backing away, but I’d already pulled two handfuls of salt out of my sweatshirt’s pocket and flung it at him.
He burned.
Every cell flamed a peculiar almost black-red, but it wasn’t raging. It was slow and, from the flailing of his arms, the horror in his sizzling eyes, and the voice he finally found in ragged scream after scream, nice and agonizing. He careened from wall to wall, but didn’t stop, drop, and roll. Basic fire safety, and he ignored it. Then again, he wasn’t leaving singe marks on the warped paneling of the walls he slammed against. Dropping and rolling wouldn’t have helped. After almost a full minute, he staggered to a halt in front of me, a burning shape of a man, and said the only word I’d heard him say. I’d seen him talking to Mels but had been too far away to hear. I hadn’t given him time to talk to me after he’d “lured” me behind the bushes with beer. This was his first and last chance. With a tongue blackened but still burning, he said it.
“Monster.”
I grinned. “Recognize.”
For once, I didn’t care about the label. For once, I was a little proud.
He then exploded. I winced and closed my eyes, throwing up an arm, but I felt no heat. Opening my eyes, I blinked and there was nothing. No glare. No afterimage. There was simply empty space where a way-too-motivated killer and molester’s stubbornly evil asshole of a shade wouldn’t give up. Not that it mattered. He lost anyway.
Ghosts—0, Lions—1.
There was no Marcus, no ghost grandpa; that was a given. I hated to lie to Nik, but I would hate it much more if he found out that a child molester thought I might be a witness, wrongly assumed I was an eas
y target, and thought I was better off dead, whichever of those was true. My brother didn’t need to know any of that. I didn’t want him knowing either that I saw a monster that needed to be put down. So I had. There was no difference between Mr. Invisible and a Grendel. If he’d been any other kind of criminal, a thief, a druggie, it would’ve been different, but he was a molester and a murderer. People can pay their dues, people can change…sometimes. Monsters can’t change and their dues are paid in their blood. Hopefully I’d stick with my own monsters, my Grendels with their scarlet eyes and metal smiles, and wouldn’t run into one of the invisible man’s kind again. I wouldn’t want to make a hobby of this.
Was I lying to myself?
I didn’t know.
Niko…he wouldn’t want me to make a hobby of this. That was enough for me. He was a good brother, a good person, and while I wasn’t, didn’t know how to be, wasn’t wired right, I tried to let him be my conscience most of the time.
As for all of the time…hell. No promises other than I would try. Trying was the best I could do.
I hadn’t tried too much with this monster-wannabe. I admitted it. I’d give it a better shot in the future.
I rubbed a toe of my sneaker through the pile of pristine white salt. It was all that was left of an extremely bad man and an inexcusably inefficient monster in the end, heaped on the cheap brown-and-orange tile. I’d have to sweep that up before Niko got home and started asking questions I didn’t want to answer. I’d thought about it the past few nights and come to the conclusion Niko had forgotten our ex-serial killer, ex-neighbor, ex-Junior, as he couldn’t bear remembering what he’d done to the blood-soaked excuse of a man.