A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  “Anything else, ladies?” If the kid was any smarmier he’d leak oil.

  I scooped my change out of his hand and grabbed the bag. “Nothing you can sell.”

  Kate went into more hysterical giggles at this, and I dragged her out through the automatic doors. Before they closed behind us, I heard him mutter bitch.

  Of course.

  I swiped my bangs out of the way as we headed for the car. “Stupid fucking minimum-wage jackass.”

  Kate half-choked on laughter. I waxed indignant for another minute or so before unlocking the Volvo’s door. There were only three cars in the parking lot. It was another fry-an-egg day.

  “What do you think he thinks we want this stuff for?” She hissed a little as she dropped onto the leather seat, her shorts riding up and pale sunscreen-drenched legs sticking with a faint tacky sound.

  I shrugged, twisted the key in the ignition. “Doesn’t matter. It’s legal to buy it.”

  “What if he knew? Jesus.” She rolled her window down. It was useless to turn on the air conditioning right away. It would just blow out oven-hot air.

  “He wouldn’t do anything if he knew. He was too busy having little whack-off fantasies about us anyway.” I sounded a little more savage than I felt, and grabbed for the can of Coke in the cupholder. Beads of condensation clung to its sides. We hadn’t been in there very long—I had a List, and I know how to shop. It’s the one useful thing Mom taught me. “One more stop, and then we can go to the pool or something. Or go home for lunch.”

  “What are we going to get now?”

  For a moment I was irritated, but then I popped the parking brake off and reminded myself she was always like this. “Big dowels. Remember? And rope.”

  “Oh yeah.” She grabbed for the Coke; I gave it up. “Becca?”

  I hit the turn signal, checked both ways on Vane, and stamped the accelerator. Hot wind poured through the open windows. “What?”

  “Thank you.” She gulped at the Coke as we bounced out across a few lanes of traffic. “I mean, you know. Yeah.”

  My heart made a funny quivering movement inside me. “No problem, kid.” And I polished her bare knee with my palm.

  Kate hung up the phone, her cheeks flour-pale. Checked the fall of sunshine outside the window. “She’s due at work in twenty minutes and she didn’t call in sick, so she must have left.”

  “Good.” I slid the very last thing into my pool bag, checking it twice. “Which means he’s probably there in front of the TV again. Waiting for you to come home.”

  She shivered and rubbed her wrist against her jeans. “Are you sure this is going to work?”

  I wasn’t. But how could I tell her so? “Remember fifth grade, and the Ex-Lax in the teacher’s lounge?”

  That got a faint smile. “Yeah. They never did figure out where that pan of brownies came from.”

  “This is just the same.”

  “It’s not. It’s . . . you know what he is.”

  “I know what he’s going to be.” I zipped up the bag. “Kate, just trust me, okay? You’re gonna be okay.”

  But nothing ever goes exactly according to plan.

  We got there all right, walking through drowsy heat and bands of golden drifting pollen. There were undercurrents and eddies of cooler air, and long breeze-borne stretches of the weird sour odor of old concrete and a type of spiny bush that smells like old-man pee on hot days. Her house looked just the same as it always did, except the grass was a little yellower. Edgar didn’t go out with a sprinkler the way my dad did. Some of Mrs. Cooke’s boyfriends had been into lawn care—but none of them stayed around long enough for it to matter.

  Edgar had already beaten most of them by hanging around for three months.

  The maroon Lincoln Continental crouched, gleaming and poreless. Kate held my hand, bruising-tight. We got up to the front door and she jangled her keys. I gave her a meaningful look, unzipped my bag, and dug out the pepper spray.

  The door opened. “I’m home!” Kate squeaked, and I stepped in.

  “Anyone here?” I peeked around the corner and saw the same thing I’d seen yesterday. Edgar on the couch, arm over his eyes. This time he had a can of beer in his other hand, resting on his taut stomach. He was muscular, in a thick greasy sort of way. You could see why Kate’s mom had brought him home. “Oh, hi, Mr. Black. What’s up?”

  He grunted a little. Kate left the door open and bolted, scrambling, across the living room.

  The dumb bunny. I’d told her to do it casually.

  Edgar jerked into motion, his arm dropping from his eyes and the beer can flying. I dropped the pool bag, inhaling the weird sour-yeasty odor Kate’s house had taken on recently, and brought the pepper spray up. The tab depressed, and the jet of it hit him right in his open, snarling mouth.

  And if I hadn’t believed Kate before, I did now. Because the instant the spray hit him, he changed.

  Strong, champing ivory teeth, fangs curving to sharp points. Hellfire burning in his swelling bruised eyes, his aquiline nose instantly running with snot and pepper-spray. He made a sound like a freight train crashing into the side of a skyscraper, and I almost dropped the spray. My fingers froze, I started shouting every bad word I knew and pressed the tab down hard. The spray fizzed and spurted. He got a whole mouthful of it and dropped off the couch like he’d been hit on the head with a sack full of hammers.

  Kate finally got the curtains jerked open. Someone had fastened them with duct tape, and the sound of it ripping away from the wall was like pants ripping down the back when a fat teacher squats. Light flooded the room, direct sun pouring in. Edgar howled, the inhuman sound bubbling through a mess of snot and blood on his face.

  I began to feel dizzy. The Communion necklace burned against my skin, a thin curl of steam drifting up.

  He convulsed against the carpet, hitting the couch and making it thump solidly back. Kate let out a half-scream, half-sob. The sunlight ate at him like acid, and the plan was for me to get close enough to snap the handcuffs on him. We could have asked him some questions before I hammered the dowel through his chest with the deadblow hammer filched from my dad’s never-used shop bench in the garage. And if that didn’t kill him, there was the thing I’d taken from the safe. Dad had told me never to mess with it, never to touch it, never never never.

  He’d said that about boys too. Would he be happy that I’d listened? Probably not.

  I stared at the smoking thing on the floor. It stopped howling and spasming, twitching instead. It had long translucent claws that sliced at the thin carpet. Bits of bubbling stuff ran out of it.

  I dropped the pepper spray. Bent down and cautiously dug in my pool bag. The yeasty smell crawled along the back of my throat.

  The gun was heavy. There wasn’t any safety. I pointed it at the steaming, bubbling, hissing thing.

  “Becca?” Kate whispered.

  “Just stay cool.” I sounded like I had something stuck in my throat. The thing jerked. “Just stay right where you—”

  The thing on the carpet screeched and scrabbled up, leaping for me. Bits of bone peeked through its rotting skin. His pompadour was melting, sliding down his face in long runnels.

  The first shot went wide, plowing through the wall between the living room and kitchen. The thing that used to be Edgar moved faster than it had any right to, and I fell over backward, the gun skittering away and his teeth clicking shut like heavy billiard balls smacking each other. I got an arm up, rugburn crawling up my left calf as I screamed and crab-walked back too slowly.

  His teeth sank into my forearm with a meaty sound and I screamed again. Kate yelled too, our voices rising in weird harmony. A bolt of sick fire raced up my arm, jolted my shoulder; he growled and shook his head the way a dog will try to shake a bone. My necklace flared with heat, a shhhhhh! under all the noise, like bacon slapped on a hot griddle.

  Kate was screaming my name. I was just screaming, the way you will in a nightmare. I fell back into the hall, into a square of
golden light. Edgar made a ratcheting sound deep in his rotting throat.

  A gulping sound.

  The gun roared. I squealed, losing all my air at the end of a scream as something burned along my leg. Edgar flopped senselessly aside in the long rectangle of evening sunlight.

  Kate stood there, both hands clumsily bracing the gun, and shot him four more times. I got in a whooping deep lungful. Someone was mowing their grass somewhere, and the fresh green scent cut briefly through the yeasty rot.

  My lungs hurt. Short sharp breaths. Sweat slicked me all over. I made a small baby sound and Kate stepped back, still with the gun pointed at him. “OhGod,” she husked. “OhGod. God.”

  “Goddamn,” I rasped. Blood slid down my arm, hot wetness. I hadn’t thought to pack a first-aid kit.

  Right now, that was the least of my problems. “Get a dowel.” My throat felt like it was on fire. “And the hammer. Hurry.”

  She dropped the gun. I managed to get up on my side. My arm hurt if I put any weight on it and my Communion necklace dropped off, the cross a molten twisted blop plopping on the carpet. I crawled forward a little, listening for sirens. Did anyone hear the gunshots? Jesus.

  The smoking ruin that used to be Edgar lay on its back, arms wide and charred lips pulled back to expose violently-white, killing-sharp teeth. Kate stumbled back and dropped the dowel.

  I got to my knees, watching him in case he twitched again. “You’ll have to hold it, I’ll hammer.”

  She nodded, lips clamped together. If I thought she was pale before she was almost transparent now. Sweat slicked her face and her cheek twitched a little right under one of her blue, blue eyes.

  She held the rough point I’d chipped on the dowel to the left side of his chest. I hefted the hammer in my good hand. My arm throbbed, and it was a good thing I didn’t have to stand up. I didn’t think I could.

  The first blow skittered off the end of the dowel. Kate jumped and squeaked. I swallowed hard, set my jaw, and waited for her to resettle the point against the crackling, blackened skin.

  We wrapped my arm with an old kitchen towel and some duct tape. Kate wanted to spray some Bactine on it, but there wasn’t any. I took one look at the ancient bottle of hydrogen peroxide and said no way.

  “You might get infected.” Kate bit her lower lip, rubbing her left wrist against her shirt. The leather cuff scraped T-shirt material, and she darted a quick glance at my face. “Or something.”

  I shrugged. My hair fell in my eyes again. I swiped it away, irritated. I was sweating and everything smelled bad and I really wanted a big dish of cherry ice cream.

  The phone rang. I would have told Kate to ignore it, but she picked up before I could stop her.

  “H-Hello?” A short pause. “No, she’s not. I thought she was there.” She sounded honestly shocked. A longer pause, and her forehead furrowed. “Um, okay. No . . . uhn-uh.” She shook her head violently, as if whoever was on the other end could see her. “I will, sure. Okay. Bye.”

  Then she hung up, her eyes big as saucers. There were bruised-looking rings underneath them.

  “Kate? You shouldn’t have answered . . .” I swallowed, hard. Oh fuck.

  “My mom.” It was a tiny breath of sound. “She’s not at work.”

  We found Ms. Cooke sitting in her blue Mazda in the garage that used to be full of boxes and crap. I guess Edgar had been cleaning it out when we thought he was just laying there watching baseball. Her legs were out the driver’s side door and the dome light was on. She stared sightlessly through the windshield at us, her blue eyes clouded like weird Jell-O. Two neat little puncture wounds glared in her neck, one with a thread of dried blood trickling down.

  Kate buried her face in my neck and started crying. I just stared, numb and dry-eyed, and tried to figure out what came next.

  The cops never came, so I guess nobody heard the shots. We sat in the kitchen, my throbbing arm crusted with dried blood, and I drank a couple glasses of water. The puncture wounds were ragged, two on the top and two on the bottom, right in the meat of my forearm. There was bruising, too. Once I washed the blood off it looked like I’d slammed my arm in a car door or something.

  Kate stared at the counter. Once in a while she’d pick at it with her fingernails. It took her a long time to say anything.

  Finally, though, she raised her head. Her hair was lank with sweat, almost as dark as mine. “Do you think she’s dead?”

  “Right now she is.” I took another gulp of water. “But when it gets dark . . . I dunno.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  A bolt of white- hot anger shot through my head. “Just hang on, Kate. I’m thinking.”

  She shut up. I stared at the toothmarks on my bruised arm. The crease along my leg where the bullet had burned throbbed dully as well.

  Hammering a dowel through Edgar’s chest was one thing. But Ms. Cooke . . . that was another thing entirely. I couldn’t count on Kate for that. It was her mother, for Chrissake.

  And if Edgar wasn’t dead, maybe Kate’s mother would keep him busy for long enough to . . .

  ... to what?

  “Do you want to . . . to do the same thing to her?” Kate whispered finally.

  I took a good look at her. She was shaking, and there were big bruised circles under her eyes. Decided. “We’ll get cleaned up. Go back to my house.” I swallowed so hard my throat clicked, dry despite the tepid water. “Spend the night. In the morning we come back and see if either of them have moved. If they have we know how it works, how it happens. If they haven’t we go out, call the cops from a phone booth, and lie like hell. Say we were never here.”

  She chewed at her lower lip. “What about the gun?”

  “I don’t know.” I shifted back and forth on the stool, stared out the kitchen window at the overgrown back yard. Shadows ran over long grass and the window, the pines soughing as the evening breeze picked up. “I’d better take it home and put it back. If Dad swears it was in the safe . . .”

  “They have ballistics.” But she subsided when I stared at her. “Sorry.”

  Why was she fixated on that? We’d have bigger problems either way. “Dad will get a lawyer if he has to.” I stared at my arm. “I need something long-sleeved to cover this up. And a pair of jeans. If we can get into the house without my parents noticing us . . . we’ll just say we were walking around or something.”

  As plans went, it sucked. But Jesus. What else could we do?

  That night we lay in my bed, stiff as boards. I knew she was still awake, she knew I was, and we just . . . lay there. And sweated in the air-conditioned coolness of my house, while outside the night breathed.

  In the darkest, deadest time of night, right around three AM, I heard a faint scratching, scrabbling noise. My arm gave a heavy, heated throb, and my head turned on the pillow.

  The shadow in the window bobbed. Twin red sparks winked out, came back up.

  “Sweetheart.” A soft, sibilant whisper, audible even through the glass. “Sweetheart, it’s Mommy.”

  My heart gave a leap like it intended to jump out of my chest. Now we knew how it worked. Mostly.

  I clapped my hand over Kate’s mouth before she could scream. “Shut up,” I whispered fiercely. “Shush.”

  “It’s so warm and soft,” Mrs. Cooke crooned. “It is. Let me in.”

  More scratches. Kate’s eyes rolled. She was no longer a board, she had turned to hot frantic flesh that hugged me tight. Her spit slicked my palm.

  “You’ll be like us soon, sweetheart. Mommy will help you. Let me in.”

  Waves of heat slid down my body. The bite on my forearm was hot and hard. Kate’s hair brushed it, and a scorch slid through me.

  “Shhh,” I whispered. “It’s okay, Katie. It’s okay.”

  She moaned against my palm. We held each other while her mother prowled outside, and after a little while the sounds went away. Kate hugged me, twitching.

  I peeled my hand away from her mouth.

  “Be
cca . . .” She shook, and we were both sweating again.

  “Don’t worry.” My voice dropped into the dark. “It’s okay.” The punctures on my arm beat an invisible tattoo in the dark, nerves pulling on the bones. I could almost feel the infection spreading.

  Maybe I should have let her pour peroxide on it. But then I’d miss how my teeth were tingling. And I’d miss Kate nuzzling at my throat. She made a little mewling sound as her fangs scraped my skin, and I jumped a little. She froze.

  I wondered how long she’d be able to go out in the sunlight.

  Probably just long enough.

  “I’m so thirsty,” she whispered apologetically. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Katie.” My arms tightened around her. I tipped my chin up, cupped my hand at the back of her head. Guided her face into my throat again. “Don’t worry. I know what to do.”

  “Good morning, sleepyhead!” Mom chirped. I tried to summon up a grin, scratching at the back of my neck under heavy hair. I really needed a trim. “I’m just about to go to the stylist’s. You’re a late bird!”

  “Mmmh.” I spotted the coffeemaker. My throat was on fire, I blinked at the light falling through the kitchen window. “What’s for dinner?”

  I didn’t care, but if she thought I’d be here, it was all to the good.

  “Spaghetti bolognese!” Mom swept a hand back through her freshly washed hair. The morning sunlight was harsh. Even foundation couldn’t hide the deep cracks in her face. “Listen, Becky, did you hear anything last night?”

  My heart about stopped in my chest. I covered it by stamping for the fridge and opening it up. Cold air bathed my feverish skin. “Nope. Other than Kate snoring. Why?”

  “Your father swears he heard a prowler last night.”

  My heart leapt up into my burning throat. I wished she’d go so I could pull the blinds. It was too goddamn bright in here, even though the sunlight dimmed. “Really?”