Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories

by Amy Cross

  “Dear Lord, help me,” Patricia began to mouth silently, although suddenly she remembered that she still had the meaty bone between her teeth.

  Seconds later, she heard another creak from the kitchen, and she realized the girl had stepped on the loose floorboard next to the refrigerator.

  Too scared to try running upstairs, Patricia finally stepped back against the wall, shuffling herself into an alcove next to the grandfather clock. All she could think was that maybe if she stood very, very still and didn't make a noise at all, the girl might walk straight past without even noticing her. The idea seemed a trifle unlikely, but she quickly convinced herself that it might work. Holding her breath, she began to wait, and sure enough she heard another footstep near the doorway, which meant that the girl was almost all the way across the kitchen.

  “You could just be polite and say hello,” Harry's voice whispered.

  Still holding her breath, Patricia waited as she heard the girl coming closer. The plan to stay quiet now seemed a little hopeless, but she figured she'd run out of time to try anything else. A moment later she spotted a hint of movement reflected in the glass of one of the pictures on the opposite wall, which meant the girl was now through into the hallway and no more than a few feet away, just on the other side of the grandfather clock. In fact, she could even hear the girl's breath now, and she realized that this was the first time she'd been so close to another human being since...

  Since...

  She didn't remember when.

  Suddenly the girl stepped into view. Patricia remained completely still, hoping to be mistaken for a statue, even as the girl took a cautious step forward. Clearly no more than ten or eleven years old, the girl had big, wide-open eyes and a terrified expression. Stopping after a moment, the girl stared straight at Patricia, who continued to hold her breath and hope not to be noticed. For the next minute, they maintained eye contact in absolute silence, and then they did the same thing for another minute, and then another, by which point Patricia had been forced to start taking slow, shallow breaths that she hoped the girl wouldn't notice.

  Silence.

  “Talk to her,” Harry whispered in her ear. “Look at the kid. She's petrified.”

  Patricia remained completely frozen, not even jumping when a car horn sounded in the distance.

  Still the little girl stared at her, as if she too had no idea what to do or say.

  “Please leave,” Patricia imagined herself saying. “Please, just get out and leave me alone.”

  “I'm sorry I'm in your house,” the girl said finally.

  Patricia stayed completely still.

  “I shouldn't be here,” the girl continued. “Please don't tell anyone. If I just leave, will you...”

  Her voice trailed off.

  Patricia waited.

  “Are you...” The girl paused. “Are you okay?”

  Silence.

  “Are you okay?” the girl asked. “Why do you... Why do you have a...” She frowned. “Why do you have a bone in your mouth? Is that a chicken bone?”

  Patricia stared at her, not daring to blink even though she could feel tiny particles of dust drifting against her eyeballs.

  “If I ask Mom,” the girl continued, “and she says it's okay, which she will, maybe you could come and have dinner at our house some time... Would you like that?”

  Patricia's eyes were watering now, but still she refused to blink.

  “Well, I can ask,” the girl added, before taking a step past her, heading toward the front door. She offered a faint smile as she did so, although she was clearly still nervous. “I don't want to disturb you anymore,” she continued, “so... I'll go now. But I really will ask Mom if you can come to dinner, and please, whatever you do, don't tell her that I came into your house, okay?”

  Patricia waited, willing the girl to leave.

  “Please?”

  The girl paused, before turning and heading over to the front door. It took her several minutes to get all the locks and bolts turned, but finally she managed to open the door. She glanced back at Patricia for a moment, as if she might be about to say something else, before finally she stepped out and pulled the door shut.

  Immediately, there was the sound of giggles outside, and footsteps running back to the next house.

  Letting out a gasp of relief, Patricia took the bone from her mouth and slumped back, almost too weak at the knees to stand.

  Six

  “Don't you think you're taking this a little too far?” she imagined Harry saying. “Patty, you oughta just go back inside and mind your own business.”

  Keeping low, Patricia scurried down the steps and into the darkness at the side of the house. She hadn't been outside for a long time, but tonight she was determined to get to the bottom of her new neighbors' behavior. All she knew for certain so far was that they were weird, that something was very, very wrong with them. In the hours since the little girl's visit, she'd had time to ponder the matter some more, and she'd come to the conclusion that the girl had been sent into the house as a kind of spy. Clearly the Goldman family was up to something, and Patricia had no intention of letting them get away with it.

  After peering through the back gate for a moment, she carefully pushed it open and stepped into their garden.

  “What if they see you?” Harry asked.

  “They won't,” she muttered to herself. “They're -”

  Catching herself just in time, she realized she'd been talking out loud.

  “They won't,” she imagined herself saying. “They're eating dinner.”

  Looking toward the house, she saw the bright kitchen lights and watched as Alexandra Goldman washed something at the sink. Craning her neck, Patricia tried to see what, exactly, the woman was doing, but she was too far away to get a proper view. Sneaking forward, she kept low and tried to blend in with the hedge as she made her way around the edge of the garden. Her heart was pounding and she was starting to think that she wasn't cut out for this kind of adventure, but she told herself that she'd be quick, that she'd just get a basic idea of what was happening and then she could hurry back unseen to the safety of her own house.

  And then, if necessary, she'd call the police.

  After all, if the Goldmans were up to something, they couldn't be ignored or tolerated. Not in such a well-to-do neighborhood.

  Reaching the edge of the patio, Patricia paused for a moment, watching as Alexandra turned and talked to someone further back in the room. A moment later the husband, Mr. Goldman, appeared and took something from a rack next to the sink, before kissing his wife on the cheek and then heading back out of view. Her face twitching slightly, Patricia slowly raised the chunk of raw meat she'd brought from home and took a bite, tearing a section away and then slowly chewing as blood dribbled down her chin. As far back as she could remember, meat had made her feel better, and she knew she wouldn't panic so long as she had a plentiful supply. Emboldened now as she continued to chew, she crept forward while making sure not to be seen. Now she was just a few feet from the brightly-lit window, and she could see the dimples on Alexandra's face as the woman continued to work at the sink.

  “She's just an ordinary wife and mother,” Harry whispered with a sigh. “Look at her, Patty, for Christ's sake!”

  “Don't take -” she began to say out loud, before remembering to be quiet. “Don't take the Lord's name in vain,” she continued, in her head. “Harry, please.”

  “Don't you think I took his name in vain when I died in that car crash?” he asked.

  Ignoring his attempts to provoke her, she ducked down and scurried beneath the kitchen window, and then she quickly ran past the back door and stopped next to the dining room window. She already knew the layout of the house, thanks to the times she'd spied on her previous neighbors, and she could hear lots of clattering and hurrying as the family prepared for dinner.

  Peering past the side of the window, she looked into the room and sure enough she saw the two children helping their fa
ther to set the table. For a moment, she was struck by how happy and ordinary the scene seemed.

  “See that?” Harry asked. “We could've had that, Patty, if only...”

  “If only what?” she imagined herself replying.

  “Well, there was that time you bit me.”

  “I was startled!”

  “If I hadn't died of an aneurysm on that golf course -”

  Suddenly the little girl turned toward the window, and Patricia pulled back. Her heart was pounding, but she was sure the girl hadn't actually seen her, although it did appear that she'd somehow sensed her presence. Then again, she felt that perhaps she'd started talking to Harry out loud, which might have attracted attention. She paused, before biting off another chunk of meat while she waited to take another look.

  “Do you really need to do that?” Harry asked.

  Ignoring his voice, she began to chew on her latest mouthful, while listening to the sound of the family preparing for dinner.

  “Do you even know what you're eating?” Harry continued.

  “Meat,” she imagined herself telling him.

  “And where do you get the meat from?”

  “The refrigerator, of course!” Such a stupid question.

  “You've lost your mind, you know,” he replied. “You've gone absolutely batty. Just go home and try to get a sense of perspective.”

  Still ignoring him, she swallowed the meat before carefully leaning up and peering once again through the bottom corner of the window. The Goldmans were all seated now, and they had some kind of large pot in the middle of the table, with a ladle resting nearby on a plate. Patricia didn't know what was in the pot, exactly, but she felt she was starting to get closer to the source of their weirdness. She watched as they started helping themselves to what appeared to be stew, but there was something about these people, something that set off all the alarm bells in her head.

  Glancing along the side of the house, she saw that the door to the basement had been left open. She knew that from the basement, it should be possible to get up into the main part of the house without being noticed. She paused, contemplating the plan while sucking on the tip of the bone.

  ***

  “Come on, Lucy,” Patricia heard Alexandra saying as she crept to the top of the basement steps. “Enough's enough. You need to learn when to stop telling tall stories!”

  “But it's not a story!” the little girl protested. “Mom, the old woman next door is really weird!”

  “That's enough!”

  “But she is! I saw her, and she's all old and thin and there are, like, I don't know, it's like bits of her were -”

  “Lucy!” the girl's mother said firmly. “Any more talk like that, and I will send you to your room, do you understand? We've only just moved into this street, the last thing I need is for you to start telling tall tales about our neighbors.”

  “But Mom -”

  “But nothing!” She sighed. “Tell her, John.”

  “Your mother's right,” the girl's father said, although he sounded a little tired of the conversation. “Lucy, eat your dinner.”

  “And when exactly did you see Mrs. Offerman?” the mother asked.

  “Lucy went into her house,” the boy said with a laugh.

  “Liar!” Lucy shouted. “I did not!”

  “That's enough!” the mother said firmly. “Lucy, one more word out of you and you can go to your room! Is that understood? One more word!”

  Staying completely still for a moment, Patricia listened as the family continued to eat. She knew she was taking a risk, and every fiber in her body was screaming at her to turn around and go back to her own house. After all, she hated being around other people, and she certainly didn't want to draw attention to herself. At the same time, she desperately needed to know the Goldmans' secret, so she was going to have to take a look around the house. That much was very clear.

  Maybe, though, it would be better to do it at night, once they were asleep. She paused, running the idea through her thoughts a couple of times, before deciding that, yes, she'd leave now and return later. She even thought to surreptitiously close the basement's external door, so that no-one would notice it had been left open. Her mind was really buzzing now as she put the pieces of her plan together.

  Slowly, taking care not to make a sound, she began to walk backward down the steps.

  “Freaks,” she thought to herself, still able to hear the family's dinner-talk as she reached the basement.

  Seven

  “Harry?”

  Sitting up suddenly, Patricia realized she must have fallen asleep. She was back in her own home, sitting at the kitchen table, and there was a nice juicy steak on the plate in front of her, although she'd only eaten half. She remembered getting ready for dinner after returning from the Goldmans' house, but then...

  But then...

  Sometimes her mind became a little foggy. Sometimes she struggled to remember what she'd been doing.

  Feeling a shiver pass through her body, she picked up the knife and fork and started eating again. Deep down, she knew she was going through another of her regular weak phases, but she knew she couldn't afford to rest. The Goldmans were clearly up to something, and she had to discover the truth before they had a chance to settle in and hide the evidence. She wolfed the steak down, before getting to her feet and -

  Suddenly a searing pain rippled up her left leg. She let out a gasp and fell forward, barely managing to steady herself against the table. The pain radiated up through her pelvis and into her gut, but after a couple of seconds the unpleasant sensation began to fade away. For a moment, the scene around her changed and the entire kitchen looked like a mess, with dirt smeared across the walls and brown stains all over the counters. She blinked a couple of times, and finally everything went back to normal.

  Beautiful drapes.

  Pristine, clean walls.

  Not a scrap of mess anywhere.

  She waited, and it took a few minutes before she felt absolutely right again. Once she felt more steady, however, she turned and limped toward the hallway. Checking the time on the grandfather clock, she saw that it was almost midnight, which should be the perfect time to sneak into the Goldmans' house and find out what they were really doing. Before she could decide how to deal with them, she needed a little information.

  ***

  As expected, the Goldman house was dark and silent. Pushing the basement door open a little further, Patricia leaned out into the darkened hallway and listen for a moment longer, but it was clear that the entire family had gone to bed.

  “Patty -”

  She immediately silenced Harry's voice in her head. Sometimes it was comforting to have him around, but right now she intended to stay focused, and the last thing she needed was to accidentally start talking out loud.

  Stepping through into the hallway, she carefully pushed the door shut before pausing again. Once she was absolutely sure that there was no sign of anyone, she reached into her jacket pocket and took out the large, meaty bone she'd brought from home, and she spent a few seconds gnawing at one of the bone's ends, using her teeth to grind away some meat.

  Limping forward, and trying to ignore the pain in her left leg, she stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up toward the landing. She had no idea what, exactly, she was supposed to be searching for, but her gut told her that the Goldmans were hiding something and that whatever it was, it must be upstairs. They'd probably hidden it in one of those awful suitcases.

  As she began to creep up toward the next floor, she kept low, poised to turn and run if she heard so much as a creak from elsewhere in the house. By the time she got up to the top of the stairs and looked along the landing, however, she was starting to feel increasingly confident.

  “Patty -”

  Her head twitched as she forced Harry's voice away.

  Later.

  She'd let him talk to her later.

  Creeping toward the nearest door, she looked through and saw M
r. and Mrs. Goldman fast asleep in their double bed. For a moment, she thought back to the times when she and Harry had slept happily side by side, and she felt a sliver of loneliness until she reminded herself that she wasn't in the house to reminisce. As she turned to keep walking, however, she realized that she'd inadvertently placed her right hand against the wall, and now a clear, meat-juice hand-print was soaking into the wood. She tried to rub it away, but she simply succeeded in making a larger, more obvious smudge. Muttering to herself under her breath, she spat on the smudge and then tried to wipe it with her arm, but now the mark was darker and even more noticeable.

  “It'll be fine,” she imagined herself telling Harry. “They won't even see it.”

  Turning, she began to make her way to the next door. When she peered through, she saw the two children sleeping in beds on either side of the room. So far, nothing seemed particularly amiss, although she felt more than ever that the Goldmans were hiding some dark secret from the world. At the age of sixty-five, Patricia prided herself on being an excellent judge of character, and she was in no mood to let such a secretive family move to the area. After all, there were certain standard that simply had to be upheld, and Waffingham Heights was a very good neighborhood with excellent property prices. Creeping to the next door, she looked through and saw only an empty room, and then she turned to look back along the landing. Whatever they were hiding, the Goldmans had clearly tidied it well out of the way, and for a moment she couldn't work out where to check next.

  And then she spotted the hatch that led up to the attic.

  ***

  Opening the hatch and lowering the ladder wasn't easy, not when she had to be completely silent, so it took Patricia almost ten minutes to get the job done. Still, the house remained absolutely quiet, and she'd heard not even the slightest peep from any of the rooms. Exhausted after all her effort, she took a moment to lean against the wall and chew some more meat from the bone she'd brought, and then she began to climb up the ladder.