Monsters Among Us

by Monica Rodden

  “No, you’re not. You’re a kid with too much on his plate, and I’m not talking about food. Talk to me.”

  “I am.”

  “No,” she said. “Talk to me.”

  Catherine hadn’t been to the clifftop since high school, but it looked pretty much the same.

  A wide but unpaved road through the trees opening to a large semicircular expanse that ended at the cliff. There was a guardrail that curved at the edge, maybe three feet high. In the fading light, it was hard to see. Catherine looked at the clock. Almost four-thirty. Sunset. So strange, how early it happened in winter. Full dark by five. Already the sun was falling, and she had to admit it was a brilliant sight: orange and red like fire across the landscape, the tops of mountains edged in gold, the sun cutting through tree branches, leaving amber shadows across the earth.

  The strange, lone lamppost wasn’t on yet, but even in its unlit state, it drew her eye as Henry parked the car.

  Was that where it had happened?

  Her heart started to race. She wondered if this was a bad idea. But a part of her wanted to see it—no, not wanted, that wasn’t right. She didn’t want to be here. But she needed to. She needed to stop hiding because eventually the terrible things came for you anyway: memories trickling back and coffins under stained glass and a confession like a slap in the face. She’d rather knock on the gates of hell than have them swallow her with no warning. And she felt Amy deserved more from her than cowardice.

  “You cold?” Henry asked, his hand fiddling with the dials.

  Catherine barely heard him. She was still looking past him, out the driver’s-side window at the lamppost. There was no police tape. No indication a crime had happened there. It seemed wrong somehow.

  “Someone should have brought flowers,” she said.

  “We can go back—”

  “No. Later. We should stay.” She blinked as the sun began to slip down the sky. “It’s pretty here. Do you think—do you think they’ll be able to get him?”

  “Who?”

  “Matt.”

  Henry blew out a breath. “I don’t know.”

  The light fell. Her head drifted to the side, to Henry’s shoulder. She felt him take her hand and she didn’t pull away. Together, they watched the sunset fade, one last blaze through the windshield before sinking out of sight.

  “Catherine,” Henry said. His voice sounded strange.

  “What?” She raised her head. His face was very close to hers, and in the coming night, his eyes seemed much darker than blue.

  He kissed her.

  * * *

  —

  Andrew looked at Minda, and to his surprise found he did want to tell her. He wanted to tell someone. That much was clear after Henry’s brief taunting had made him blurt out everything. And maybe Henry had had a point about the church; no, he wasn’t really religious, but there was something about stepping over the threshold of a church with stained glass. Something about violins and a choir and old verses read aloud from pages so thin they crinkled like leaves when touched. He knew he couldn’t handle it.

  It was like years ago when he’d swum in the neighborhood lake even though his mom had told him a million times not to. When he got home he sprinted upstairs and tried to shower off the evidence before she saw him, using as much soap as possible, washing his skin until it hurt. But it was no use; he could still smell the lake on him afterward, a scent like sweat and rotten vegetables. Going to church would have been like walking down the stairs after that shower, knowing there were some things you couldn’t wash off.

  He shook his head. “I can’t.”

  Minda gave him a swift, searching look. “Fine.”

  “Fine?”

  She shrugged. “I can’t make you talk. But I can make you listen. You’ll have to give me something to talk about, though. I’m not doing all the work.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Ask me a question. Give me a launching pad.”

  Andrew blinked, taken aback.

  “And you have to keep eating.”

  He took more chicken. His fingers were a greasy mess. After he swallowed, he thought of something. “How’d you know when I’d sober up? I told you I had one drink and you said I had to wait until the morning or I wouldn’t pass a Breathalyzer.”

  “I lied.” She raised her hands in mock protest at his expression. “Like I was going to let you drive in the state you were in. Mental state, my friend, not physical. You had one drink? You’ll blow a flat zero in max two hours, more likely one, but I don’t want you driving when it’s dark.”

  “Now you’re sounding like a mom again.”

  This time, she smiled at him. “You’re looking better. Would it cheer you up more if I tell you about how the body processes alcohol?”

  “Not rea—”

  “So the body processes alcohol at a standard rate of point-zero-one-five-percent blood-alcohol concentration per hour, and that’s about one drink. Of course, there’s variation, but alcohol actually doesn’t stay in the body as long as, say, food. For instance, that chicken you’re eating will probably leave your stomach in three, four hours.”

  “Good to kn—” He froze, a piece of chicken halfway to his mouth. He’d eaten almost all of the leg, and he could see the pink-tipped bone protruding from the torn flesh. “What if it didn’t?” he asked.

  It was as though a bomb had gone off right in front of her. Catherine jerked back so hard she felt her head hit the passenger-side window.

  “Jesus,” she heard him say. “Catherine. Catherine?”

  There were stars in her field of vision. Gingerly, she put her hand to her head, eyes screwed shut, feeling impossibly embarrassed.

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  She sat back up but still didn’t look at him. “Sorry. For…I just…” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t know how to explain it. Even now her heart was hammering in her chest. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

  He said nothing. Actually, he said nothing for so long that she turned to look at him. He was staring straight ahead, at the edge of the clifftop. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She stared at him.

  “That you were raped? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Catherine felt her mouth open, then close. “What?”

  “Like, Andrew had to come, and then you told both of us. You could have just told me.”

  She didn’t know what to say. Finally, she managed, “Henry, I didn’t tell anyone. Not really, I—” She shook her head. “Listen, let’s just…Let’s just go home.”

  “No,” he said. “Let’s not.”

  * * *

  —

  “What do you mean, ‘What if it didn’t?’ ” Minda said.

  “Like, are there variations?” Andrew said. “For stomach digestion. Can someone else eat this chicken and it go through their stomach a lot slower than it would mine?”

  She tilted her head at him. “Why are you asking this?”

  His heart was beating fast, each movement of blood bringing snatches of memory closer together in his mind.

  He told Minda he was just curious.

  “Uh-huh. You’re not eating.”

  “If you answer my question I will eat this entire chicken, Minda.”

  Minda rolled her eyes. “I’ll believe it when I see it. But yes, to answer your question. There are variations in how long it takes the stomach to digest food. Women tend on average to have slower transit time than men throughout the entire digestive system, including the stomach, but it depends on the food, too: certain foods pass to the small intestine more quickly than others. Carbohydrates are mostly absorbed in the small intestine, so they leave the stomach before, say, proteins, which are broken down almost completely in the stomach. Fats usually take the longest b
ecause they have to be emulsified by liver bile before moving down the digestive tract.” Another pause. “Okay, so my job is a little gross.”

  “But are there variations in people?” Andrew pressed. “Not just women in general having slower digestions, but specific people—”

  “You’re asking about the girl,” Minda said, her eyes widening. “Because she was found outside. In the cold. The rain. Can’t depend too much on body temp with those extremes so you use stomach contents to establish TOD. Am I right?”

  Andrew said nothing. He was hearing Catherine’s drunken recollections about Amy, seeing Henry’s raised eyebrows when Andrew had told him the time of death. And he was, like Minda, remembering his conversation with Bob, the explanation about how Amy’s young age had been so helpful in determining the time of death. Her last meal, eaten with her parents. An exact timeline. Simple math.

  “Hate to break it to you, kid, but what you’re talking about is fairly rare. Delayed stomach emptying—or gastroparesis—isn’t usually diagnosed until adolescence or later. And yes, it primarily affects women, but still”—she shook her head—“unlikely.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  You just want Henry to not have an alibi, a sharp voice inside him said. That’s why you’re doing this.

  He ignored it.

  To his surprise, Minda’s face grew tight and solemn and she tapped her fingers on the table again. “My patient who died this morning had gastroparesis. Diagnosed four years ago. We tried everything. Nausea pills and Reglan and Dexilant and Motilium. Did the stomach pacemaker. Caused an infection. We had to remove it. Over the course of all this treatment she went from a hundred and forty to eighty. Pounds,” she added at his expression. “We had to tube-feed her. Not through the nose. No point if the nutrients had to go through the stomach, where they’d just sit there and rot for two days before she threw them up again. We did a PEJ. Percutaneous J-tube. Inserted right into the small intestine. But…she was ready. She didn’t want to live like that anymore.” Minda trailed off, her eyes past him, distant. “She was twenty-nine.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.” She rubbed her eyes briefly. “It’s a nasty disease. And half the time we’re not even sure what caused it. Yes, you can get it from diabetes or a bad bout of the flu—what we call postviral gastroparesis—but so many cases I see are idiopathic. No known cause. Mind you, not all cases are as severe as the one I told you about. It’s not…common to die from gastroparesis. It does happen, though. Nutrient deficiency leading to severe malnutrition leading to organ failure—but usually it’s manageable. Some people go years before it gets bad enough to even warrant medical attention. They think they have IBS, reflux, or just ate something rotten. They avoid milk or gluten or go vegan. They have low energy. They say they have a sensitive system until the symptoms get worse and they’re throwing up their dinners in the morning and then they come to someone like me and get a diagnosis.” She gave a wry chuckle. “You know, it’s funny—well, not funny, but interesting. One of the symptoms. It’s not physical, but some of my GP patients get very interested in food, even before they know they’re actually sick with a disease and not just drinking milk that’s gone bad. Partly it’s the diets they try to feel better, but it’s also more than that. Some may get into cooking or watching Cupcake Armies or whatever it’s called, studying food almost, as though their mind is trying to make sense of what’s wrong in their body before they even really know something is wrong. One of my patients was even considering culinary school before she was diagnosed. It’s not a conscious thing, I don’t think. But it’s interesting, you know? Andrew?”

  Catherine looked at Henry for a long moment. “We’re not…going home?” she asked.

  He was very still, his eyes fixed on the windshield; then he shifted in the driver’s seat to face her head-on.

  “You never talked to me senior year,” he said.

  She stared at him.

  “You never talked to me. You didn’t even sit near me. One class we had together all of high school and you pretended I wasn’t even there. You said sorry before, in the kitchen, but you didn’t say why.”

  She shifted where she sat, feeling her purse scrape against her boots. Outside the car, the falling night was like a blanket being pulled over the earth. “Henry—” she tried, but he cut her off.

  “Was it Josh?” he asked.

  “Josh?”

  “Your boyfriend.”

  Her heart twisted beneath her ribs. “No. No, it wasn’t Josh.”

  “What, then?”

  “It—” She licked her lips. “I was nervous.”

  “Nervous.”

  “To talk to you.”

  “I made you nervous?”

  “No. Yes.”

  “Which is it?”

  “I don’t know!” she burst out. “Henry, I don’t even know what we’re talking about—”

  “We’re talking about us, Catherine. We’re talking about us.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. She felt confused and impatient and a little dizzy with the sudden shift in conversation. Some part of her knew she should be more sympathetic, should offer him a reason, but she didn’t know what to say besides an apology, and she’d already done that. Maybe it wasn’t enough. Fine. But what did he want from her?

  “I—I was wrong,” she stammered. “I know that. I was stupid and fourteen and I didn’t—didn’t think about it. About us. I’m sorry.”

  Silence.

  “Henry, can we just—?”

  “Just what?”

  “Go home.”

  She realized this was the wrong thing to say; something seemed to fall behind his eyes.

  “I want an answer first.”

  She felt like she was about to cry again. “An answer for what?”

  “Why you didn’t tell me about what happened to you.”

  “I—what? Henry, why would I tell you something like that? We’re not—I’m sorry, but we hadn’t talked in years—”

  “We talked at prom.”

  She gaped at him, caught off guard. “Yes,” she managed. “Yes, okay, but for like a minute—”

  “And whose fault is that? You know, I bet if I hadn’t walked past your house before Christmas, you wouldn’t have even thought of me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Henry turned back to the front of the car. She watched his profile, the curve of his eyelashes as his gaze darted. “I missed you,” he said. “I missed you so much, Catherine.”

  * * *

  —

  Minda was staring at him, and Andrew knew something must have happened in his face, but he couldn’t do anything about it. His mind was racing, facts spiraling like tendrils, reaching out and wrapping together, forming a conclusion that now seemed not just possible but likely.

  Amy’s bouts of vomiting. And not just vomiting, but delayed vomiting.

  her mom would text me at eight in the morning

  Andrew had gotten food poisoning before, waking up in the middle of the night after a seafood dinner to spew up oily sauce and shriveled bits of shrimp, his stomach churning. But by three in the morning there was nothing left to heave up, and he was resigned to gagging up bile and sweating through the T-shirt and shorts he’d worn to bed.

  He’d never heard of vomiting so long after a meal. Throwing up dinners in the morning. How long between the eating and the illness? Ten hours? Twelve?

  Catherine had also mentioned that she and Amy didn’t go out often, making Amy seem relaxed almost to the point of lethargy. Unusual, wasn’t it, for a child to have such low energy she’d rather stay inside? But if Amy was sick, if her body wasn’t processing food the way it should, of course that would affect her energy levels—except when it came to food. Because Amy had an interest in food that went beyond the norm. Ho
w many twelve-year-olds had their own baking business complete with online ordering and a seasonal bike-delivery service? More than a hobby even, it seemed to Andrew that Amy had been focused on food almost to the point of fixating on it.

  studying food almost, as though their mind is trying to make sense of what’s wrong in their body

  “Say she had it,” he said.

  Minda was starting to look alarmed now, but he didn’t care. He licked his lips. His mouth, despite the greasy chicken, felt exceptionally dry.

  “Say she had it. The girl who died. Amy. Say she had gastroparesis and she didn’t know, no one knew, and her last meal was dinner at seven or eight or whatever—could the time of death be wrong? Could they have opened her up and looked at what she ate for dinner and the food be so undigested that they thought she died just a few hours after dinner when really she was killed later?”

  Minda gave him a pained look. “Andrew, if this is about that girl you were with—”

  “Of course it’s about her!” Andrew burst out. “But does it matter? Does it change the answer?”

  When Minda spoke, her voice was flat, like a speaker at a lecture who’d gotten a question she didn’t much like. “If the victim had undiagnosed gastroparesis, yes, the time of death, if based primarily on stomach contents and expected digestion time, could be off.”

  “By how much?”

  Silence.

  “By how much?”

  “Hours,” she said.

  Andrew bolted from the table.

  The lamppost just outside the car clicked on, and Catherine turned away from the light, blinking and slightly dazed. There were gold pinpricks behind her eyes that took a moment to fade. When she opened her eyes, Henry was looking at her.

  “It’s on a timer,” he said. He was pointing to the car clock, which read 5:01. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” It was strange, but she’d expected it to be later. “Henry, can we…can we go now?”

  He said nothing. And it was strange, as well, that as she watched him, she heard Andrew’s voice in her head.