Here Be Monsters (Tyler Cunningham)

by Sheffield, Jamie

  It occurred to me that she was treating me like she does the dogs and cats that come through the shelter like a revolving door; I'd even helped her before, but had never been on this side of her bedside manner during treatment. She gripped my left shoulder and pulled the arm up, and swiveled it around roughly; it hurt because of the torn meat, but I couldn't feel the grating of broken bones. “You're lucky, it's just a flesh wound.” She commented. “On TV they'd call it a 'through and through', and you'd be doing pull-ups when we came back from commercial.”

  “If it wasn't a 'flesh-wound', Justin would have missed, in which case I'd feel a whole lot luckier.” But she was right... it seemed as though I had had some luck this night after all.

  She put on a camping headlamp, clipped a magnifying lens onto one side of her glasses, and had me sit up while she checked the entry and exit holes. She tweezed out a couple of bits of shirt and algae and such from each side, and then used a big squirt bottle of saline solution to really rinse out both sides of the wound; she seemed ok when I whined, but surprised when I cursed... not what she expects from the usual guests on her table. She drew the edges of the surprisingly small holes most of the way closed with strips of tape augmented with what smelled like crazy glue, covered it with gauze and more tape, and then moved my arm in a circular motion again; everything held... and it hurt like hell.

  She unlocked and opened the meds cabinet and fridge at the other end of the room. She got out a syringe and a handful of vials of pills and liquids. She loaded the syringe and asked if I was allergic to Penicillin. “What are you using, and no, I'm not allergic to anything that I'm aware of, but will I be barking or meowing at the end of this process?”

  “Twin Pen, which is Penicillin G with Benzothine to get a bunch of antibiotics into your system quickly, to head off the creeping crud you must have from swimming in Lower Saranac with two holes in you. After that I'm going to give you some Ultram, which is a post-surgical med we use for pain management; along with some Cephalexin, which is a broad spectrum antibiotic in pill form which you should take for two weeks, assuming you don't try to talk Somali pirates into killing you before the pills run out. I'm guesstimating the dosages a bit, as these are vet-meds, and I don't want to call the actual vet for guidance. As it is, I'm going to have to fudge our books a bit or klutz my way into 'dropping' a bunch of meds tomorrow morning when somebody else is in here to see.”

  “I'm sorry Dorothy. I didn't want to get you mixed into this.” I mumbled, and then yelped as she stuck me with the needle. She dropped the syringe into a sharps container on the wall, and pulled a coke out of the little dorm-fridge they kept in this room for people to keep their lunches and snacks. She brought it over to me with two each of two different types of pills; I washed them down gratefully with a swig of coke.

  “Now that I know you're not going to bleed out, or pass out... and if you're done crying for the moment, I'll take a look at that angry bruise on the end of your right hand, where your pinky used to be. While I'm doing that, maybe you can tell me a little bit about what the 'this' is that you've gotten me mixed up in, 'want to' or not.” She grabbed a roll of tape and a couple of what, in a doctor's office, would be called tongue depressors, but in a shelter were probably called something else. She gently prodded the joint where my pinky joined my right hand, manipulated it back into a slightly more natural position relative to the other fingers, taped it to a neighboring finger, covered both with a cut-down tongue depressor, and taped the stabilizing bit of wood to the fingers. I tried not to moan and whimper while she was doing this, but for the most part failed. I could see her thinking to herself that most kittens were tougher than me.

  “Do you want the long or short version? Also, bear in mind that some of what I did, and almost all of what the other guys did, was illegal. You knowing about it probably requires you to tell the police or face prosecution.”

  “Gimme the short version in nice declarative sentences, but I reserve the right to circle back for additional info as needed.” she said.

  “George Roebuck has been making Methamphetamine locally, for sale less-locally. Cynthia Windmere found out by 'big-brothering' the hell out of his computer usage at the library. She confronted him and his minions grabbed and then killed and dumped her in Lower Saranac Lake. I found out and stupidly confronted him also, with the same effect. I lived, so far, and called you.” I finished the coke and she grabbed another one for me.

  “You thought your way out of the problem in a way that didn't work for him, same with Cynthia... Lord save us from smart people who don't get the way that the rest of us think and act.” She smiled at me as she said this, but this was something we'd talked about before... she called it my 'reality gap'.

  “QFMFT!” I replied, using a frequent (and favorite) response of hers. “The question is, what do I do now? I like my life here, I've finally managed to install a map of the places and people, and know how to make things work here. I don't want to start over in a new place and re-map, remake, my whole world... again”

  “Are you ignoring, or ignorant of, the bigger issue? That motherfucker tried to kill you, and almost succeeded. We need to take him out, burn his house down with him inside it, and piss on the ashes!” She flushed as she said this, not from embarrassment and self-consciousness (as I would have), but with feeling, I think.

  “Tell me what you really think Dorothy, don't stifle your feelings, it'll eat you up inside. I can't kill him, I'm not an assassin. He might have family or pets with him in the house; I'm not burning it down. I don't want to end up in jail at the end of all of this.” She turned and started to say something, but stopped herself when I started up again.

  “Besides, I think that with his guys failing to kill me, I can convince him that he made a mistake in trying the first time around, and that my original idea can still work.” I said in a reasonable voice.

  She goggled at me, as though I was speaking in tongues, and nearly yelled, “Even forgetting the fact that it was fucking idiotic the first time around to tell the drug-dealer that you knew what he was up to, and give him a chance to whack you... which you seem to be doing AGAIN... moron... even forgetting all of that... which I can't… not even for a second... he killed Cynthia! Even if there was some valid argument that he would buy into for not killing you… which by the way, there isn't… he still killed Cynthia... your friend... Cynthia! Did you forget? He can't do that and get away with it. I didn't even like her, and it's not OK with me. In the words of Old Jack Burton, 'son of a bitch must pay'. You talk about balance and logic; you've got to kill him and his guys to bring balance and logic back to the universe.”

  She took my pensive silence for dumbstruck silence. To be fair, the two look pretty similar when I haven't intentionally assigned my face an expressive position. She snapped her fingers and threw another attempt at persuasion at me, “Those crime books with the guy Parker?”

  “The Parker novels, written by Richard Stark, who's agent knew him as Donald Westlake, until he died on New Year's Eve of 2008?” I offered.

  “Whatever... that guy... what would Parker do? Like those silicone bracelets everyone wore a few years ago, except Parker instead of Jesus?” This last idea made me giggle a bit; I don't always understand the rest of the world's sense of humor, nor is mine often in line with theirs, but this thought struck me as funny. I stopped giggling after a moment though, and stood up/off of the surgical table to stretch and walk and think a bit, it occurred to me that while her argument was needlessly retributive, she was, at least partly, correct.

  I had originally hoped to restore order to my world by returning Cynthia to the library and ignoring the issues that had brought about her disappearance. That was now impossible on two separate levels: she was dead, and George knew that I knew about both his business and murdering Cynthia (either of these was obviously adequate reason for him to kill me). I therefore couldn't worry about restoring balance in the way that I had originally (and in hindsight foolishly) hoped to do
. But, I could try to preserve what was left of my world; this had to include preserving my life, both corporeally and the life that I had built for myself in the Adirondacks. I had rewritten my world after my parents died, and although what I had now was not what everyone had, I liked it. I didn't want to start over again in a new place almost as much as I didn't want to die. I had explored my new world, pushed back the unknowns day by day, and person by person, and new place by new place; I had fought for the Adirondacks, and didn't want George to win them from me.

  I had to kill George Roebuck, it occurred to me, him and the two thugs who had tried to sink me in the lake next to Cynthia and whomever else had bothered them enough to earn that boat ride over the years. Not for revenge as Dorothy posited, but simply to preserve my place in both the universe and my own little corner of it. I didn't know how I was going to do it, or if it was even possible for me to do it, but I once again (perhaps over-optimistically) had a vision of the future. It was of me in Smart Pig and the local environs, in a world with no George Roebuck (or Justin or Barry) in it.

  I turned to Dorothy, nodded once, and said, “Parker would kill them all, and that's what I guess I have to try and do... in a couple of days... after you help me get out to my camp and into my hammock to hide out and try to come up with a plan that leaves them dead and me alive, without Frank having to arrest me before I go to his house for dinner next Monday”

  Dorothy’s face contained an odd mix of impressed and hopeful and grim and biting back laughter; I would have to settle for that as the best that I was going to get.

  .

  ADJUSTMENT

  Lonesome Bay, 3:14a.m., 9/7/2012

  I woke up sore and thinking about a 90 degree wedge of a 12” peach pie. Instead of peach pie, I gobbled a handful of Dorothy's dog drugs and downed one of the Gatorades we had stolen from the backroom fridge. We had cleaned out the fridges in the backroom and office, as well as desks and cupboards, of everything edible in the assumption that we shouldn't drive through town or delay my hiding, like a scared and wounded tiny woodland mammal (which I was), from the world in general, and George and his thugs in particular. Dorothy filled a garbage bag with everything edible that we found and helped me back into her little SUV for the short drive out to the plow turnaround from where I could walk out to my campsite.

  She got me through the woods and we hung all of the food except the Gatorade for morning. I had a pair of tuna sandwiches and a quart container originally labeled for 2% milk that we had filled with a mix of whole milk and half and half from the fridges in the TLAS. I'm not a big fan of tuna but I figured that my body could use the protein. By the time I finished the sandwiches and the milk/cream, I was full and tired and needed Dorothy's help to get into my sleeping bag and tip back into the waiting hug of my hammock. Dorothy wanted to call in sick, stay and help, obviously certain that I was either going to die in my sleep or drive over to surrender myself to George in the morning. I assured her that I planned to do neither and told her that she needed to stay alive and safe and working for the good of the homeless beasts in the Tri-Lakes area (and in case I got shot again, and needed more mending).

  I could hear her stomping angrily through the woods away from my camp long after the light from her headlamp had faded away. I was asleep before I heard her car start up to bring her home and to bed. After a restful nap, I woke up and felt like hammered shit, but significantly better than I would have felt in a garbage can on the bottom of the lake. So, after washing down the pills and finishing the Gatorade, I pee'd, checked the dressing for leakage (none), hobbled back to bed, and went back to sleep for another five hours. I repeated this process in both a boring and painful manner for the next 36 hours or so, waking once when Dorothy came by with some bags of food and drink, and to poke and prod and change the dressing. She said that during another visit, which I don't remember, I had sweat through my clothes and sleeping bag. She had stayed for eight hours slapping on dermal-contact thermometers every 30 minutes until my temp dropped below 100. I felt as though I should worry about her car being parked out on the road for all that time, but since we didn't get shot or dumped in a lake, it didn't seem worth it after the fact.

  Lonesome Bay, 4:23p.m., 9/8/2012

  I climbed out of the hammock with all of my joints feeling stiff and muscles protesting. My mouth tasted as though a tiny pig had spent the last few days in it, eating chili and cabbage and ex-lax; my sleeping bag smelled like a locker-room. When I stripped off my clothes, the dressing on my shoulder was cleaner than I felt it should have been (given the state of my body and sleeping bag) That likely meant I'd had another visit from Dorothy while I slept. I could lift my left arm up to shoulder height before my body yelled at me and things felt as though they might start to fall apart; so I didn't go beyond that point. I hobbled around my campsite, picking up garbage and putting my things back in order. My right pinky was sore, but not throbbing anymore... it was no worse than if I'd caught it in a door now, so I took the tape and splint off and practiced making a fist.

  I snuck down to the lakeshore, terrified that I would see Justin and Barry on George's pontoon boat either looking, or waiting, for me down in the water. There were a number of boats on the water, but none had the right look, and nobody seemed to pay attention, or even notice, when I eased myself into the water to float around for a while. The cold water felt great all over, except for the wounds on my shoulder, where it stung and felt hot and cold and dead/numb in various places and stages. After floating a bit, I tried gently moving my arms and legs, not really swimming, but moving around a bit. Everything seemed crusty and cranky as though all my joints had been lightly coated with some abrasive material while I wasted two days sleeping. I stopped when the bandage came loose and floated away like a white flag on the dark water. Climbing out of the water, the wind stole all of my residual warmth and strength, and by the time I got back up the hill to my camp, I was shivering and stumbling enough to freak myself out a bit.

  Dressed in my warmest layers, and fortified by a ginormous serving of oatmeal, I tried to think about the hole I'd dug for myself in the last few days. It occurred to me that I could just pack everything that would fit into my Element, leave the rest, and drive until I got to the far side of the Rocky Mountains. George wouldn't have sufficient interest in silencing me to reach out across thousands of miles to find me among hundreds of millions of people. Spenser or Travis might have immersed themselves in a grueling montage of workout and rehab and training to prepare themselves for a fair fight with the bad guys assembled against them; I had neither the time, nor the abilities, nor the will to focus on that set of chores (along with my deeply held belief that fair fights were for idiots). I needed cash and gear and food to keep living in the woods for a bit longer, while I figured out how to deal with George and the minions (which sounded like the name of a bad cover band to me for some reason, causing me to painfully snarf a bit of oatmeal). As I dug out my GPS and set it up to point me towards my nearest supply cache, I got the beginnings of an idea.

  I swallowed a handful of the dog drugs and headed off with the GPS and a hydration pack to find a cache that I had hidden last spring about a mile and a quarter southwest of my campsite on Lonesome Bay. I have a bunch of these caches hidden in the woods around the Tri-Lakes, and a few further out along routes that I've traveled and explored in chunks of wilderness that I've brain-mapped for myself in the last few years. This one (like most of the others I've put out in the woods) contained $500 in mixed bills and a roll of quarters, some oatmeal packets and jerky, water purification tablets, an alcohol stove and a bottle of HEET, a map, a GPS receiver, a headlamp, batteries, a Leatherman, a poncho, socks, a skullcap, gloves, and a book (this one had a copy of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” in it). I found it without any trouble. For some reason I seem to always place them near a glacial erratic (I’m inexplicably drawn to those big rocks dropped by a glaciers during the last ice-age… I can’t explic it). I checked the GPS and map to see where
the next closest cache was, and what the easiest route would be to get from where I was to where I wanted to be, when something clicked and my half-formed idea graduated to fully formed. In an instant, I knew a couple of things that I hadn't even a minute ago. One, I was going to stay in the Adirondacks; two, I knew how I was going to deal with Justin and Barry; and three, I'd be on time for dinner on Monday with Frank and Meg... or I would be dead, if things went badly for me (in which case being late/absent wouldn't matter).

  I headed back to camp with most of the contents of the cache stuffed into my hydration pack. I'd left the rest in the now mostly empty 50-cal ammo can that I'd have to restock if I got through this OK. I got back to camp, fed, watered and medicated myself before climbing back into the hammock to read for a few hours to let my back-brain work out the details of the murders that I planned to commit in the coming days.

  TLAS, 11:48p.m., 9/8/2012

  Chief Bromden smothered McMurphy at about 10:15p.m., and by that point, I knew most of what I had to do. I first read “Cuckoo's Nest” when I was ten, and I get more out of it every time; I tend not to talk too much about my relationship with the book and the characters within it with other people because I relate to them differently than other (regular?) people do. In this reading, I found some comfort and guidance in the inevitability of the characters' actions, the victory of chaos, and the cost of that victory. I called Dorothy and asked her to pick me up for a meet at the shelter at 11p.m.. I told her to leave all of the lights off except for the one in the internal office, a room in the center of the building with no windows.