The Monster Variations

by Daniel Kraus

  Devil, Come Home Swiftly

  The lathery stink of horsehide was suffocating, and the darkness made it worse. The space was narrow and the two boys bumped into the walls, each time causing a horse to snicker, flap its lips, stomp in place, grunt. The dust floated down like snow and the boys had to wipe it from their faces and necks and try to contain their sneezes, or else risk rousing the animals to some higher plateau of resentment.

  The barn was hotter than anywhere else they had been that summer, maybe anywhere they had been in their lives. It was small and cramped, though it had looked enormous when they first approached it. There had to be a loft somewhere, but they saw no steps, no ladder, nothing. The building’s sole feature was this single hall that ran one end to the other, bordered on both sides by horse stalls. The door to each stall was closed, but they were only half-doors and inside the boys could see the large, dark heads of the beasts outlined in moonlight.

  James pressed his eyes into the floating dirt, searching for a sign of the Monster. They had discussed the Monster’s location on the way over, and it had been Reggie who thought of the barn as the only sensible place.

  “Tom wouldn’t keep it outside,” Reggie had said.

  “Because people would steal it?” James asked.

  “Because it’s bones,” Reggie replied. “And dogs and raccoons would come chew it up and drag it away.”

  So it was indoors, they agreed, but not in the house. Tom lived with parents and no parents they could conceive of would ever allow such a thing inside, certainly not in the same house where they ate their meals and took their baths and relaxed—all impossibilities with something like the Monster staring with its empty, meaningless eyeholes.

  Therefore, the barn. It had to be in the barn. James had only nodded and kept moving, his heart racing, his palms sweating against the drawstrings of the empty laundry sack he carried. They would go into the barn, look for it, and maybe they would find it, maybe not. They would not encounter any people if they were lucky, and James clung to this single encouraging thought.

  Neither of them had counted on the horses. Neither of them had foreseen creeping nearly shoulder to shoulder with these creatures, and in almost absolute darkness. Before his eyes had adjusted, James walked with one hand trailing against the wall for support, and suddenly the wall had dropped off and his hand had landed on something coarse and damp, and James had felt a quick, hot expulsion of air before pulling away, a scream gurgling in the back of his throat, for it was the Monster, the Monster, the Monster was alive.

  Of course it had only been the nose of a horse, which really wasn’t much better, and now James walked with his hands floating close at his sides, fearful of buckets left in the middle of the floor or pitchforks with unusually sharp points. He walked without raising his feet, instead shoveling them through the straw.

  Reggie was somewhere up ahead, bothering the dust. He was in constant motion: on his knees, then on top of something, then poking his head into the abyss of a horse stall. These days James suspected more and more that Reggie found him useless and not much better than Willie.

  James reached the end of the barn. Reggie’s hands were fumbling their way across the wall.

  “There has to be a loft,” Reggie whispered. They both looked up, but the darkness withheld all details.

  Reggie turned around and James did the same, and then they were looking back down the hall, where the walls were blacker than the floors, and the windows into each chamber blacker than even the walls.

  “It’s in with one of the horses,” said Reggie, and his conviction was confirmation: they were going in, would move among each animal until they found what they were looking for, there was no way around it, it had to be done. James staggered. Surely they would be maimed. They would be knocked aside, their skulls crushed by powerful hooves.

  Reggie moved forward. In despair, James spun his eyes wildly about the barn—what was he looking for? A weapon with which to intimidate Reggie? If James wanted to stop him, a weapon was what it would take, and he imagined tightening his fingers around the stem of a pitchfork, and how that single action would spell his end. Reggie, who seemed so much older now than at the start of the summer, would turn around and evaluate the feeble threat, and there might be a glimmer of regret in his eyes before he went at James with everything.

  Then James’s eyes found something he wasn’t expecting and it was the Monster. He sputtered and attempted to speak as dust billowed into his mouth and dirt caked across his tongue. Reggie was reaching for a stall handle and James could not stop him and so he rabbit-thumped his sneaker against the ground.

  It worked. Reggie turned to him and looked not so much older, after all, and James wagged a frantic finger. Above the door through which they had originally entered was a shelf, and on the shelf, propped among bags of feed, empty gas canisters, a coiled garden hose, and other assorted junk, was the Monster. Reggie saw it immediately and went for it.

  By the time James got there, Reggie had already overturned a bucket, climbed on top, and taken hold of the apple box. It lifted quickly, as if Reggie had expected it to be heavier. Then he moved with confidence, hopping from the bucket and holding it out to James, grinning.

  The gray of the bones glowed faintly. James did not want to move closer but he did until he could smell it, a weird mix of mud and manure and something else, something gamy. He felt all over again the confusion he felt the first time he saw the Monster. He knew he was supposed to experience awe—he had certainly felt it when hearing about it on the playground back in the spring-but now he fought for breath not out of admiration or fright but from an unexpected flood of revulsion. This thing in tatters and stuffed inside a box might be from a world of teenagers, grown-ups, and grandfathers, but it was foul and sickening and James wanted nothing of it.

  Reggie took the laundry bag and kneeled down to shove the box inside. His rough movements made it clear: he did not care about the Monster, he never had, it was just a currency he could use to purchase entry into that life of cigarettes, cars, and girls. James realized that Reggie was just like Tom, for he too planned to exchange the Monster for something of greater value.

  When they gently slid away from the barn, the laundry bag slung across Reggie’s back, James was staggered by the expansiveness of the night; the sky seemed to retract and soar away. He stumbled and his head craned. Reggie put a hand against his back and shoved.

  Their four hurried feet sounded like a stampede of horses.

  Later, their walking was slow and soundless. James did not like it and asked Reggie what he planned to do with the Monster.

  Reggie grinned and spun tales. What kid wouldn’t hear about it, if not tomorrow, then the next day? And when school started up again, boy, the legend would spread like fire: there was a Monster and it was taken, and there was a boy who planned it and pulled it off-look, there he is.

  But none of this answered James’s question. What did he plan to do with it?

  Reggie glanced at James in irritation, his smile fading. “What do you mean?” he asked. “I’ll have it.”

  “But,” James said, and then paused to consider his phrasing. It was as if Reggie could not see past this moment of flight. “But what do you want to do with it?”

  “Well,” said Reggie, looking at the sidewalk in front of him and automatically dodging the cracks. “I guess I’ll put it away.”

  “Where?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. I guess in a box.”

  “Just like Tom’s grandpa?”

  Reggie did not look at him, but James felt the chill of his displeasure.

  “I’ll bring it out for special occasions,” Reggie suggested. “I mean, that’s what Tom said, right? It’s special, it’s the only thing like it anywhere. If I leave it out all the time, it won’t be special at all, it won’t even hardly be a monster. It’ll just be something that, you know. That just sits there.”

  James gauged his advantage and spoke.

  “P
lus someone might steal it from you,” he said. “I mean, if you leave it out.”

  Reggie kept his eyes on the task of skipping over cement cracks, but the temperature of his speech became cold like the earth when you dug too deep.

  “Who’s gonna steal it?”

  “I don’t know,” said James. “I guess there’s always somebody, though.”

  “Like who?”

  James sighed like the whole thing was too confusing to think about, which was not true. He shrugged, and the shrug was exaggerated so Reggie would see it even in the dark, even as he studied the sidewalk.

  “I don’t know exactly,” James said. “But how long did it stay up in that attic? A long time, right? And eventually someone stole it.”

  “Tom didn’t steal it, it was his grandfather’s, he took it from his dead grandfather.”

  “And then, after a while, we stole it from him,” James said. “I’m just saying, there’s always somebody. You can keep this thing locked up if you want, but one day you’re going to have to take it out, or somebody’s going to find it, or maybe you’ll be dead and someone will just go through your attic. But eventually somebody’s going to take it back.”

  Reggie was walking faster. He regripped the laundry bag.

  “I’ll bury it.”

  “All right,” said James.

  “No, I’ll hide it in the junkyard. A special place in the junkyard, and we’ll make a map, and draw up a map key that only makes sense to you and me.”

  “Someone could steal the key.”

  “Yeah, but you need both halves of the key to understand it, that’s the thing.”

  “One of us could die, or move away, and then the other one would never be able find it, and then it’s like we never even stole it, you know? Which is kind of even worse.”

  Reggie opened his mouth but caught his breath. Brushing accidentally against his arm, James felt how warm Reggie’s skin was, even in the cool, late-night air.

  They turned a corner and James’s house was just ahead. Reggie suddenly swung the bag from his shoulders, tightened the string, and held it out to James.

  “Hey” was all James could think to say.

  “Here.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Take it.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  Reggie smirked at him over the top of the bag. Brashness sharpened his features. James almost expected to see a cigarette dangling from his lip.

  “I’m not giving it to you, dummy. But you know I can’t take this inside my house.”

  James tried to stamp out the alarm that flared in his chest, but could not act fast enough.

  “Why not?” He heard the whine in his voice but was unable to seal it off. “Why didn’t you say something before? What do you expect me to do with it?”

  Reggie made no sound, but it looked like he was laughing.

  “Jesus, calm down. I’m not asking you to hang it in the living room. Just take it for tonight, stick it under your bed or something. Your house is huge, you got plenty of closets. If I show up with a bag like this my mom will see it right away, and then we’ll both be in trouble.”

  It was a good threat. James still didn’t know what to do and Reggie still held out the bag, and now they were only a few yards from James’s driveway. Maybe if he sped up, if he scrambled up his lawn, maybe if he just did it fast enough, Reggie would have no choice but to deal with the bag himself.

  “I’ll come over tomorrow and get it from you. Once my mom leaves for work. It only makes sense. Come on, take it. It only makes sense. Aren’t we in this thing together?”

  With that, Reggie pressed the bag into James and James took it and then Reggie smiled and nodded goodbye and broke away in the direction of his home, as if long aching to surpass James’s drowsy pace. James stood at the foot of his driveway, grasping the bag in one elevated hand, alone.

  Trying not to look at the bag, he walked slowly around to the back door. The bag smelled of nothing aside from dirty laundry; James held it an arm’s length anyway. As he climbed the back stairs, the item inside the bag shifted. James shivered and goose bumps spilled from his sleeves, down his arms. He pressed open the squeaky door. The bag thunked against the doorframe. James grimaced and opened the door wider and suddenly the bag was inside, the Monster was inside his home, and the horror of it chased him to his bed, where he fell facedown into his pillow, wrapped clean sheets around his head, buried himself in a warm darkness, and then accidentally fell asleep.

  * * *

  His father held the bag by one hand. James could not yet react. It was not clear what time it was. James thought of what was inside the bag and then things went hot and awful and he felt like such a child, such a stupid, stupid child.

  James and his father did not speak much anymore. The silence had begun the day James was caught lying about sleeping over at Reggie’s. Now that James had seen his father with Call-Me-Kay at the run-down motel, he figured he knew how his dad had uncovered the truth. However, this suspicion remained unspoken and unproven—although he and his father lived in the same house and by necessity exchanged words, nothing but compulsory information passed between them. For the first time in his life, James heard nothing about the donut or the hole, and to his surprise he missed it. He ached to confront his father about Ms. Fielder so that things between them would return to normal, but before he could do that he felt he needed to gain his father’s trust, become a man on equal footing.

  That was a fantasy now. James had brought something illicit into the house, something dead, and that was breaking a law so basic it had never been formally stated. Did the cat drag in dead mice? Of course she didn’t, and she was a dumb animal.

  James felt a plummeting dread. How could he even begin to explain? His father would want to know what the thing was. James did not know. His father would want to know where it originated. James did not know. His father would want to know why he took it, why he wanted to bring it into their home. James felt like crying-he didn’t know, he couldn’t remember.

  His father glanced at the bag in distaste and looked for a place to set it down. The floor was filled with boys’ things—sneakers, army men, a baseball glove, a busted flashlight.

  “You broke the curfew,” said his father.

  In his head, James begged for mercy.

  His father looked away. “I’m not even angry about that. Boys do that. I get it. I’m not happy about it, but I get it, and it’s a conversation for another day.”

  In fact, it was a conversation they’d had several times in the past—the rambunctious nature of boys, and how, if James was careful, it could safely extend all the way through college, no matter what James’s mother said. All that was required was discretion, and James had failed even in that. He had brought an awful thing into their home, and this action not only jeopardized the future but also made his father vulnerable to his mother’s rebuke.

  James thought the time was right to speak. He chose his words, repeated them internally, and then tried them out: “I’m sorry.”

  His father seemed unmoved. His face was newly shaven, red and overly smooth, and the day was so young there was not yet a single pen poised inside his ink-stained pocket. His father’s features pinched, and he rediscovered the bag in his hand. “I thought you had better judgment than this. Was your friend Reggie involved? He has an unkind influence on you, James, and I wish you could see that.”

  James felt his mind racing. He almost shouted, “Yes! Yes! It was Reggie!” but something in his gut raced even faster and stronger. He found himself shaking his head, protecting his friend, no, no, no—Reggie had nothing to do with this. Words even escaped his lips: “It wasn’t Reggie.”

  His father raised his fist as if he were lifting a dumbbell, and looked at the lump that spun slowly from the draw straps.

  “There’s the stealing. That’s one thing. I can’t believe you’d do something like that, not without your friend Reggie, but who knows, maybe I’m wrong. M
aybe I’ve misjudged you. Maybe you’ve disappointed me even more than I realize.”

  His father then did a terrible thing. He tossed the bag onto James’s bed. James felt the weight of the apple box flop against his shin.

  “I’ll tell you what upsets me more,” said his father, his voice rising. “That you believed in something this asinine. That we raised you—” He shut his mouth with a snap, looked for a moment as if he was doubting his words, then carried on in a tone less likely to wake James’s mother. “That we raised you with certain values and certain goals, and still you behave in a way that could throw it all away. You have embarrassed me, James. You’ve really let me down.”

  This was the worst thing his father had ever said to him. James expected a flood of tears—they had certainly dropped from his eyes on lesser occasions—but for some reason the sobbing stayed caught in his chest. His nose felt full of snot. His hands were slimy with sweat. His neck was on fire.

  “Take a look at it,” his father said, jabbing his chin at the bag. “Go ahead, have a look. You went through a lot of trouble to get your Monster, you might as well see what it got you.”

  James dragged his eyes to the bag, and several moments passed before he realized what his father had said: he had called the Monster by its name. James looked at his father, so bewildered that he almost reached out. His father read his look and shrugged, and spoke to James slowly, like he was stupid.

  “Of course I looked inside. And yes, I know what it is. Everyone knows what it is. Some kid out on Sycamore Lane with too much time on his hands. I tell you, it’s this damn curfew, it’s making you all stir-crazy.” His father sucked on his teeth for a moment. “It’s a prank, James. People make fun of it. It’s some ridiculous old hoax. That kid? You should feel bad for him. He’s not very smart, James. Not all kids are as smart as you. He’s not very smart and you took advantage of him and you should feel bad.”