1001 Monsters You Must Slay Before You Die

by Miles Hurt

I clutch the box. The children smile. Some laugh.

  'Don't worry,' says the girl. 'We won't steal it.'

  'Who are you?' I ask.

  She gestures towards the mini-town of caravans.

  'My family,' she says. 'We're here for work.'

  I blink, the tension within me unwinding. It registers that repopulation has begun.

  'Come say hello,' says a little boy.

  A strange feeling steals over me. I listen to the music, and can hear talking and laughing coming from the camp. I realise what the feeling is.

  Peace.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Detritus Park used to be full of buildings. About fifty years ago, it was a suburb called Pickwick. The InterLopers destroyed the place, levelled the whole area. They weren't around long, thank Sod. Just long enough to flatten the place. Rambunculans didn't bother to rebuild Pickwick. They just let the grass grow and called it parkland.

  Clarezza and I were having one last go at being together. It was a couple of years after she so abruptly left me for the mage Nyx. But I forgave her this indiscretion on the grounds that she was foxy.

  I was lucky enough to catch her on a downward slide. Her career as a heroic quester had stalled; her seven-volume autobiography A Cycle of Songs and Sagas got cancelled when the fourth book flopped. She was depressed, withdrawn. A shadow of her former self.

  Enter Pops Allsop. For me, there's no aphrodisiac like low self-esteem.

  I made it clear that this time was going to be different. I held the upper hand for a change, and be damned if I wasn't going to make the most of it.

  'No more one-sidedness in our relationship,' I told her. 'No more cheating, no more put-downs, no more ordering me about. And if you don't like it, you can get out of my life, Clarezza. Now.' I folded my arms, let my words sink in. 'Are you prepared to do it my way this time?'

  She beheld me with her glittering, almond-shaped eyes. I could tell she was going to yield.

  'No.'

  Okay, so she didn't yield. She resisted, and my firm stance crumbled like puff pastry.

  So much for the upper hand.

  We were living in a three-storey stone townhouse in the middle of what is now Detritus Park. It was a gorgeous place; a real mansion. There was no way I'd be able to afford it normally. But the InterLopers lowered the property value with their shenanigans.

  They appeared in the midst of Rambunculous as if from nowhere. Creatures from another dimension, they were impossibly huge, as tall as the VMP-Radio Tower. The InterLopers would plough through buildings for a mile or so. Glowing purple, striding on their many legs, horrible and bizarre. Crushing everything in their path.

  Then they would vanish in a flash, leaving trails of destruction gouged into the city.

  After two nights of these abrupt visits from the towering InterLopers, everyone in Pickwick evacuated. Those that were still alive, anyway. Most of the buildings were reduced to dust and broken walls. It looked like a warzone on another planet.

  The InterLopers couldn't be stopped by guns or tanks or planes. They couldn't be communicated with. All attempts to deal with these huge creatures fizzled. They showed as much concern for us as a child would for insects when taking a shortcut through a wheat field.

  It was decided that that's what they were doing. Taking a shortcut between other worlds. How or why, nobody knew. The gates through which they appeared and disappeared moved around, but always the monsters cut through Pickwick. Because the area was confined, Rambunculans just gave it a wide berth, and got on with their lives.

  Except for people on the look-out for a cheap place to stay. Clarezza set herself up in the townhouse a week or two before we got back together, and as she was housebound with ennui I had to move in to be with her. My life became a battle between the two chief emotions that drove my existence: lust and fear. Lust for the distant, beautiful elf. Fear of being crushed like a roach beneath the indifferent heel of an interdimensional thingy.

  Lust held an early lead in the battle.

  Did I mention that she was foxy?

  A counter-culture of squatters appeared in Pickwick, taking their chances. They ran petrol generators, tinkered with circuit boards, and had bad haircuts. They picked over the abandoned houses for furniture and scrap. A funky little market community sprang up. Our days were spent bartering for tins of sardines in the markets, hanging out in communal squats listening to appalling electronic music, and lounging around the house. At night, when the sky outside flashed with the purple fire of the InterLopers, Clarezza and I made love, expecting at any second for our house to be crushed around us. It was sexual bliss, but my nerves were fried.

  I'll never forget the night I left her. The afternoon was dull. Clarezza sat at the window seat, the lace curtains billowing around her. She had a faraway look. Even wearing a washing-day t-shirt, tracksuit pants and moccasin slippers she managed to be willowy.

  I was sitting next to the horn of an old hand-cranked phonograph, listening to Cornelius Chunk's breakthrough album, A Matter of Opinion.

  The record came to an end. I flipped it over straight away, looking forward to a fourth listening for the afternoon. Clarezza groaned and rolled her eyes.

  'Don't you want to listen to something else?' she asked me.

  I knew her well enough to know that that was her way of warning me not to play the record again. I knew she wasn't a huge fan of jazz. At the back of my mind I also knew that I was pushing it, listening to the same record four times in a row. And I knew she had an unpredictable temper. She'd lashed out in the past over little things I did; inconsequential stuff like leaving a little ball of my pubes on the soap dish. But it was a really good record. And I really wanted to listen to it again.

  A light breeze ruffled the curtains.

  I dropped the needle in the groove.

  Clarezza sprang up as the first notes hit, a blur of motion. Without a word she took the record off the platter. She smashed the vinyl disc over the player's horn, then trickled the broken pieces through her fingers, over my head. I sat frozen on my chair. Clarezza picked up the album cover, the cover with the cool blue-tinged monochrome photo of Cornelius Chunk holding his saxophone on his lap and exhaling a big, cool puff of smoke from a cigarette, the cover with the liner notes written as a spectacularly unintelligible poem by Travis Burlap, that cover, and she ripped it in half, tossing the pieces on to my lap.

  But she still wasn't finished.

  With a defiant raise of the eyebrows, she lifted the phonograph in her gossamer arms and heaved it out of the open window.

  I closed my eyes, wincing. The crash came up from the street.

  Clarezza sat down, very pleased with herself.

  If I was at all capable of action, I would have shot her dead for that. I loved that record.

  'That record,' I said as I brushed off pieces of cardboard and vinyl, 'was seminal.'

  She shook her head and sighed.

  'Only another jazz nerd would know what that word means.'

  I took a very deep breath.

  'Then let me spell it out in terms that even a mirror-loving lounge cat with no discernable function in life other than to spread misery could understand,' I said. 'That record you just destroyed, that record was the only thing I care about in this Sod-forsaken place.'

  She shot me a look.

  'Including me?'

  I hesitated, not sure what to say. A second ago I was on top of the moral high ground. I was still there, but I'd just realised my heels were at the edge of a dangerous cliff.

  'You like your stupid easy listening records more than me.' She tucked her knees below her chin.

  But just like that I had her again. This was an argument I couldn't lose.

  'Easy listening?' I smiled in disbelief. 'That's Cornelius Octahedron Chunk you're talking about. Easy listening? Are you deaf? That stuff is smoking hot.'

  'It gets a bit tiresome after the fiftieth time you play it. Each day.'

  'The subtleties are infinite,'
I said. 'You just don't know what to listen for. And there's only about three copies of that record left in Rambunculous.'

  She snorted.

  'Two, now.'

  I ruffled my fingers through my hair, frustrated.

  'Look, someone's got to hang on to this stuff,' I said. 'What with things getting smashed up over and over. You're worse than an InterLoper.'

  'Whatever,' she said, her gaze returning to the street. 'It's done now.'

  She wouldn't talk to me after that. I fumed, but she elegantly ignored me. My fume began to descend to a mere smoulder of annoyance. An hour later and I was only able to manage a moist sulk. I gave up. What was I going to do, walk out on a girl whose beauty outshone the stars?

  The sun went down: Rambunculous night. We ate our tinned beans in silence. Clarezza didn't seem bored anymore. She started pacing up and down, becoming aethereal in the flicker of the candles. She started to shoot hungry glances in my direction.

  I became nervous, waiting for the InterLopers to arrive, to take their dreaded shortcuts through the city.

  Inevitably, the rumbling of a titanic footfall rolled through the window. The building vibrated, the mortar between the stone grinding to powder.

  Clarezza grabbed me. A huge ripping sound echoed through Pickwick as a squat just down the street was crunched by the first InterLoper.

  Clarezza stroked my hair. She kissed my neck. With every distant crash, every fizz of energy she clutched me tighter, wound up into a trance-like ecstasy.

  'Make love to me,' she hissed, dragging me towards our bed.

  Again the conflict raged within. Lust and fear were finely balanced.

  But the matter was settled for me when the InterLoper sheared through our building, removing an entire wall. Through the view that this new renovation presented I could see the shank of the monster as it brushed past. Over the rooftops of the neighbourhood I spotted more of the creatures, slowly and crashingly making their way nearer.

  The scales were tipped in favour of fear at last.

  'Clarezza,' I said. 'I'm leaving you?' It was like a question; I couldn't believe it myself.

  Clarezza dug her nails into my shoulders. She was on fire.

  'One more night,' she implored me.

  The earth shook, the building threatening to collapse.

  Clarezza moaned.

  I finally realised it was the danger that turned her on. She wasn't into me at all. I was just the warm body foolish enough to shack up in Destruction Alley.

  Normally I don't mind being used. In fact, I like to be useful, especially in the boudoir. But when that comes with a high chance of death, I take exception.

  So I left her. Somehow. It was rather difficult to fend her off, but I managed it. I fled Pickwick that night.

  The shortcuts slowed down after a few more months, until the visits stopped altogether. Soon Rambunculous healed itself. The demolished buildings were removed. The park was created, kind of like a memorial to what was lost.

  The next time I bumped into Clarezza, we weren't in mortal danger. And she looked at me like I was something that an InterLoper had scraped off its boot.

  THIRTY

  I could get comfy here. The fire is warm in the cooling afternoon.

  The immigrant musicians sit on folding chairs around the cooking fire, playing their up-tempo music. They can play, alright. The rhythm swings relentlessly, improvised melodies from the clarinet and guitar intertwine.

  The tune finishes with a fast, high trill from the clarinet and tremolo picking from the three guitarists. On a beat they cut it silent, smile at one another.

  I clap. Not exactly straight-ahead jazz, but pretty good.

  A woman, the clarinetist's wife, hands me a cup of wine over my shoulder. I smile up at her.

  'Thanks,' I say.

  This is nice. A little community moving in. There's a stew bubbling over the fire, people chattering, some musicians leaning against one of the caravans showing each other some chords on the guitar. Children running around, climbing all over the caravans, around the horses.

  'So,' I say, 'what brings you good folk to town?'

  The guy with the clarinet speaks.

  'Rebuilding,' he says. 'No shortage of work here.'

  'Rambunculous welcomes you,' I say. 'I hope you find happiness here.'

  The clarinetist taps my wooden box with his foot.

  'And what's in here?'

  I open my mouth to reply, but I'm interrupted.

  There is a cry from the edge of the camp. The children come running, yelling. I look around. Everyone in the circle stands up.

  A dark, winged shape has swooped down into the street beyond. It lands, the wings folding behind its back. The thing, humanoid, strides into the camp. The immigrants scatter in fear, tumbling over their folding chairs.

  I realise that the creature is wearing a poncho. The poncho hangs to its legs, the colours faded and the cloth desiccated. Though shaped like a man, the creature has the mottled, multi-part face of an insect.

  I've seen that face before. And I've seen that poncho, too.

  The monster locks its black eyes on me.

  'Pops Black Turtleneck!' it bellows at me.

  Pops Black Turtleneck. It's a name I haven't been called in about twenty years.

  The poncho-clad creature takes a stride, ready to pounce. A chair, thrown by one of my new friends, tangles its feet. The creature falls.

  I've seen enough. I drop the cup of wine, grab up my stuff and run.

  I plunge back through the deep grass towards the melted statue, expecting my hunter to pluck me up into the air at any moment. There are more shouts and cries from the camp, more clattering of chairs as the immigrants try to fight the thing off. Lucky for me, their efforts serve to delay it. I hope the monster spares them.

  I dash past the statue, almost overbalancing, careering into the grove of trees. I trip on a rock, fall down the embankment of the creek, land face first in mud.

  Looking up, I see it circling above the canopy of trees.

  To my left, the creek feeds into a narrow concrete tunnel. I scramble for it, shoving the gun and the box in before me. Darkness eats me. I bend over, my knees soaked in mud.

  I can hear the thing, in the tunnel now. Scraping after me. Its wings rustle against the concrete.

  My forearms ache, but I drive myself on into the blackness. I feel long antennae snaking around my ankles, sliding up my trouser leg.

  I sense open air on my left; an alcove, or a branching tunnel. I roll into it, and feel my body drop. I'm sliding down a chute, deep beneath the streets. I have no idea where I'll end up.

  I just hope my pursuer is too big to follow me.

  And, of course, that I don't die down here.

  THIRTY-ONE

  For the most part I've led a solitary life, and have felt lonely. But it turns out that you can have too much company. The old adage is true: hell is living with nine clones of yourself.

  About twenty years ago I woke up one morning to find nine exact copies of Pops Allsop sharing my bed. They'd popped into existence while I was sleeping. I was living in a little garret in Huxley Rise, sleeping on a narrow cot.

  We all opened our eyes at exactly the same moment. My clones and I were piled up like hot dogs in a plastic packet. Naked, unshaven, odorous.

  'Sod!' all ten of us said in perfect unison. 'What's happening?'

  We all tumbled out of bed, stood around eyeballing one another.

  It was then that the hangover came, like a brick between the eyes.

  A spearing pain hit my skull. The clones must have felt it too. We all clutched at our heads at the same time, falling about in agony, like a classroom of expressive dancers whose teacher had given the sudden instruction: 'Worst hangover ever.'

  'Creeping shit!' we all said together. 'My head!'

  I'd spent the night before at a little speakeasy with some interesting types under the Eternity Avenue Bridge. I overindulged on the piquant drop being sol
d from the still.

  Of course, when I say 'interesting types' I mean 'bums'. And when I say 'speakeasy' I mean 'cardboard box'. And by 'piquant drop' I mean 'paint stripping moonshine'.

  The clones must have been a hallucination. Was there wormwood in the spirit those bums dished up? Yosham's razor had it that, in Rambunculous at least, the simplest explanation was usually the wrong one. The problem was that Yosham's razor appeared to be too busy cutting through my frontal lobes to settle the matter.

  Working out what was happening came a distant second to my immediate need to find painkillers. Problem was, my new friends were in the same dire straits. A mad scavenger hunt broke out in the flat. We all started raiding the cupboards for whatever we could find. Things got ugly fast. A scuffle broke out in the bathroom between four clones over a couple of tablets of paracetamol. I was in the kitchenette at the time, fighting two more copies for first access to the water tap. It felt like a nightmare, but when one of my clones bit me on the ankle as we rolled on the floor, the pain was quite real.

  'Stop!' one of me yelled. He was standing on the coffee table in the lounge, holding a silver packet above his head. 'I have the pills!'

  We all scrambled into the room, and the Me on the coffee table tossed a single white pill at each of us.

  'There,' he said as we swallowed the painkillers. 'That's all the pills I have in the flat. One each won't do the trick, but better than nothing. Now then, no more fighting.'

  There were some angry glances, some wiping of blood from lips, but we all simmered down.

  'Something bizarre has happened,' the Me on the coffee table said, 'but it's happened to all of us. Let's agree to work together.'

  Nodding of heads, murmuring of assent. Rubbing of bleary eyes. Scratching of naked arses.

  This made sense, though I couldn't shake a feeling of chagrin that even a clone of myself appeared to have more leadership and courage than I did.

  'What should we do?' one of me asked. We all exchanged glances. It was weird, the same face flitting backwards and forwards. I felt like a battery hen bobbing my head up and down in a cage.

  It was then that I hatched my master plan to get us out of the predicament. I spotted a large bottle of moonshine under the coffee table. It was my traveller from the speakeasy last night.