Some Monsters Never Die

by E A Comiskey

  She’s talking about being turned on? She just held a can for me to cough up into.

  “Help me up, will you?”

  “You’re feeling better then?”

  “Sure. If you say so. I can’t stand the smell of myself. I want to take a shower.” He’d just had a bath the night before. Or was it two nights before? Was it even night? What day was it now? Everything was a blur. It didn’t matter when it had been. He stank, and he wanted to wash.

  She pulled the covers back and held his arms, lifting him to his feet with startling strength. In the bathroom, she started to tug his shirt over his head.

  “I can do it,” he said, backing away.

  “But it’s more fun if I do it. I wouldn’t mind getting in the shower with you,” she said, rubbing one hand between his legs.

  Good God, woman. I’m dying! He couldn’t say that out loud, though. He simply said, “I can’t.”

  “Oh, but you can,” she purred, sinking to her knees.

  He could, and he would. He wasn’t that sick. He was just exhausted and being overly dramatic. If he was at death’s door, he wouldn’t be moaning in pleasure. And panting. Panting meant he could breathe.

  If he turned just a little, he’d be able to see her in the mirror.

  The thought added an interesting flavor to the sensations in his body.

  He shifted, but he was careful to keep his eyes on the beautiful young girl in the mirror. The old man with streaks of white hair freaked him out.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Richard

  The old lady at the hospital information desk gave the impression that she had come there for treatment and, feeling better than usual that day, had decided to come downstairs and socialize a bit. Her steely gray hair was an impenetrable helmet of lacquered curls. She stared at Richard and Burke with watery blue eyes that peered into their souls from behind drooping lids. A permanent frown-crease marked the spot exactly halfway between her thin, spidery brows.

  “My father needs to have blood drawn,” Burke told her. “Could you point us toward the lab?”

  “Follow the blue line on the floor, dear. That will take you to the laboratory seating area. Be sure to register with the ladies there.” She lifted her chin a fraction. “You do have paperwork, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Of course.” Burke nodded. “Thanks for your help.”

  They followed the rainbow of colored lines on the floor around the corner and past an intersecting hallway where the orange and black lines branched off in separate directions.

  Richard shivered. “Old biddy reminds me of my fourth-grade teacher. The woman had supernatural sight, I tell you. Put a frog in Susan Morgan’s desk one time. Swear that lady was in another room, talking to another teacher, when I did it. Walked in and beat me with a ruler.”

  Burke laughed. “What did Susan Morgan ever do to you?”

  “Didn’t do nothin’.” Richard shrugged. “Thought I was in love. Just trying to get her to notice me.”

  She lifted one hand to her heart in mock outrage. “Grandpa! I thought you only ever loved Grandma.”

  “Your grandma was Susan Morgan’s best friend. How do you think I met her? Finally got old Suzie to go out with me for a soda after school.”

  “The frog worked?” she asked.

  “‘Course not. That was in fourth grade. I weren’t takin’ no girls for soda in the fourth grade. Wasn’t till years later. Said she’d go, but only if her friend could come and I had to pay for ‘em both.”

  The blue line turned left at the end of the hall, branching away from red and yellow. Two doctors in green scrubs rushed past, paying no attention to them. Burke had fussed about hospital security, but Richard had lived in a medical facility. He was all too aware of the cold truth: It wouldn’t be hard for an old man to go unseen in a place like this.

  “So, you went on a date with two girls?” she asked.

  The memory was enough to make life worth living. How had he come to a place where he’d only thought of the bad things? There were so many good moments to recall. “That I did,” he said. “But I only paid attention to one of ‘em, and it weren’t the one I invited.”

  “I love the way you loved her, Grandpa. I wish everyone could have that.”

  “Hmpf.” He waved away her words. “Because I was smitten? People are smitten all the time. It’s easy to lose your mind over a pretty young girl with legs that go all the way up to her backside. Harder to stay with her when she insists on decorating every room in the house with pink flowers or serving runny mashed potatoes with every meal, or when she gets sick and…” the words stuck in his throat and refused to go any further.

  He grunted again. “Love is all well and good, but commitment is what’s missing from the world today. Look at that fool you married. Loved you just fine. Loved the next thing that came along, too.” Oh, it was so much easier to talk about her pain than his, but he wasn’t so blind that he missed the stricken expression that flitted across her face. “Man was a fool,” he said again. “Had a good thing and not enough sense to hold on to it.”

  “He called me, Grandpa. Last night. His new wife left him. He says he wants me back.”

  “You said?”

  “I said, after all this time, I finally figured out how to be my own person and I didn’t need him to come along and try to undo that.”

  He nodded his satisfaction. She was as smart and strong as he’d come to believe she was. “You can do better.” Hearing the words stirred a memory of saying the same thing to his daughter. Shame blossomed in his heart. He had a lot to make up for.

  The sliding doors to the laboratory waiting room hissed open. They stepped through and found two seats a row away from the patients flipping through old magazines or staring at their phones. A white-haired lady in a wheelchair was pushed past them and through the door that apparently led to the rooms where the lab technicians worked.

  “Grandpa?” Burke’s eyes fixed on the silent figures talking about world politics on the muted television set mounted to the wall.

  “Yeah, kid?”

  “Thanks for calling him a fool.”

  Richard knew all too well that Burke’s mother had blamed Burke for the breakup of her marriage. She felt that her daughter had pushed her husband away with her independent spirit, that she should have tried harder to please him and make him feel important, that she should have tried to win him back after he left. She’d ranted on about it at every visit for the better part of a year. Not that there were more than a handful of visits in a year, but still.

  “Ain’t no need to thank me. Just callin’ ‘em like I see ‘em.”

  A man in a white, short-sleeved uniform shirt that showed off biceps the size of an average person’s thighs stepped into the room. “Gerald?”

  A man with arms like toothpicks sticking out of his plaid, button-down shirt stood and followed him back into the hallway. Richard couldn’t help but think they looked like cartoon characters walking side-by-side.

  “I don’t have a crush on Stanley. You know that, right?”

  Her words startled him back to the present. “That’s what you keep telling me.”

  “Grandpa, really. I’m not in love with him. He’s old enough to be my grandfather.” She paused. “Good Lord, he’s old enough to be your grandfather.”

  He didn’t believe her for a second. It was good she had kicked her worthless ex to the curb, but surely, at least a small part of that fortitude came from her feelings for Stanley.

  “If you say so.”

  She laughed. “You’re really convinced I am.”

  “Not my place to judge.” He still judged. It was hard to break a life-long habit, but at least he’d learned enough in his recent adventures to keep his mouth shut in regard to his judgments.

  A sour-looking lady with a bun so tight it pulled her eyes back unnaturally came into the room and called for Joseph. The chosen patient trotted into the hallway behind her.

  “Why are you so convi
nced I have feelings for him?”

  “You seem awfully concerned, is all.” Not to mention, Stanley had never met a woman who wouldn’t let him leave a few cracker crumbs on her sheets. It was unnatural.

  “You’re concerned about him, too,” she pointed out. “Are you in love with him?”

  He scowled at her. “That’s not funny. He’s my…” How to finish that sentence? Stan friggin’ Kapcheck was not his friend. He couldn’t stand the man. Stan was every smug, arrogant son-of-a-gun Richard had ever despised all rolled into one. Not his enemy, though. That was certain. Stan had helped him, and taught him, and earned his respect. There was no denying he was worried. Stan deserved better than being dragged into Hell by The Devil.

  The man with the Incredible Hulk arms returned. His voice boomed in the quiet room. “Zachary?”

  “Come on, honey.” A young woman with dark circles under her eyes and wisps of hair falling from her ponytail lifted a little boy from his seat. The child’s eyes were red-rimmed and teary. “No more pokes, Mommy.”

  “Just a little one, Zackie. They’re going to check your blood one more time.”

  They both followed the boy’s progress into the hall. Little Zachary disappeared around the corner and the two of them sat very still, waiting. Magazine pages rustled. Someone coughed. Behind the frosted glass window, a phone rang. In the hall, the child began to cry.

  “Now?” Burke asked.

  Richard stood, nudged her. “Help me find a john, will ya?” he said loudly for the benefit of those around them.

  No one paid any attention. They had their own problems.

  “Oh, sure. There’s probably one back there. Come on, then.” She jumped to her feet and held out her arm. As he had after his hip surgery, he wrapped his arm around hers and leaned hard in her direction. Holding on to her and moving with slow, shuffling steps, he let her help him through the door and into the hallway.

  This is how I walked the day I left Everest, he thought. Had he really been such a feeble old man? How had he come back from such a state? Surely, Nathaniel’s homemade medicine wasn’t responsible for all of this. Did his adventure with Stanley have a greater magic than he realized, or was fresh air and exercise really enough to restore a man’s vitality?

  They inched past a woman sitting at a desk in the hall, talking on the phone. A young man pushed a gurney toward them. The young woman in the patient room hushed her son. “It’s okay, Zackie. Almost done. One more little vial and he can take the needle out. We’ll go for ice cream, okay?”

  “Excuse me. Can I help you?” came a voice from behind them.

  Their pace quickened.

  “Are you looking for something?” the woman called.

  “Just headed out for some fresh air,” Burke shot over her shoulder, gesturing vaguely toward an exit sign at the end of the hall. “Fall,” she whispered to Richard.

  Richard’s fall was spectacular. He hit the floor hard enough to knock an involuntary grunt out of himself and sent a metal tray of instruments crashing against the wall in the process.

  “Grandpa!” Burke yelled. “Oh my gosh!”

  The woman who’d been calling to them rushed toward him. “Sir! Are you hurt?”

  “My hip,” he groaned, cringing at the memory of having a real accidental fall and shattering his brittle hip.

  The woman dropped to her knees next to him. “I need some help, Logan!”

  The man with the biceps emerged from the nearest room and squatted down next to her. “Just be still, sir,” he said.

  The lady who had been on the phone came jogging in their direction.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Burke take a step backward, making way for them to assist him. “Help him! Please help him!” she said, her voice shaky and panicked. She disappeared from his line of sight.

  The big man rolled Richard onto his back. Embracing his role in their little production, he moaned loudly.

  “It’s okay, sir. We’re going to help you. What’s your name?”

  Burke reappeared and stood over him, a triumphant gleam in her eye.

  He pushed to his feet and gave a little bounce on his toes. “Wow! That was a close one. I really thought I was hurt there for a second.”

  “You’re okay, Grandpa?” she asked.

  The three medical workers stared at him with their mouths hanging open. “Yeah. Yup. Yes. Thanks, all. Sorry for the fuss. It’s not really so bad, after all. I’m fine. Thank you for your help.”

  Burke grabbed his arm and they took off toward the green glowing exit sign as fast as they could without breaking into a run. They rushed along the blue line, past the fourth-grade-teacher-doppelganger and burst into the brilliant Arizona sunlight.

  In the car, Burke looked at him with wide eyes. “Are you laughing?” she asked incredulously.

  “Yes!” he wheezed.

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but by the time she had backed out of the parking space, she was laughing, too.

  The last week had held more laughter than the last ten years put together. If he was about to die at the hands of The Devil or her minion, at least he was going out on a high note.

  ***

  They made a quick stop at the Sierra Vista Walmart for an axe and a photo print of the selfie Burke took of the two of them, then they headed back down the snaking path of Charleston Road toward Tombstone. The sun was dipping low on the western horizon. The progress they’d made seemed a small dent in the mountain of Things To Do, but there was no denying the day was slipping away. Days had a way of doing that. Days. Years. Decades.

  It didn’t used to be that way. He used to be immortal.

  Back then, there’d been a starry night when Richard had been so overcome by lust, he’d pulled his car off to the shoulder of this road and made love to his wife right there in the front seat. Well, if you could call it making love. At the discovery that she’d waited for him all day with no panties, he could barely contain himself. It wasn’t five minutes after they stopped that they were driving again.

  In those days, he’d taken it for granted that they’d live forever. They were so young and full of life, how could they not? Someday they’d probably grow old, but that day was so very far away as to be incomprehensible.

  And then she died.

  They both turned to stare at the writer’s house as they drove past. It was nothing more than a dark smudge against the hillside.

  “I’m going to kill that monster,” he said.

  Burke nodded. “What if it’s not him? What if we’re wrong? Our evidence is thin, for sure.”

  Richard had entertained the same thought a dozen times, but he’d always dismissed it with the same logic. “I don’t think we’re wrong. It feels right.” It was a pathetic argument, but he was certain.

  “I think so, too. I want it to die. I want to kill it. I’m afraid of how much I want to.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Finn

  Sara’s strong, sure hands worked the eucalyptus-scented soap into a thick lather in his hair. Her nails scratched his scalp, gently massaging. She washed behind his ears, his neck, and down the entire length of his body with tender care while he leaned against the wall, vacillating between terror and affection.

  “Why are you here?” he asked as she pushed the suds in between his toes.

  She grinned up at him. “Finn, don’t you know how much I enjoy your company? You make me feel alive.”

  Oh, the irony. Hadn’t he wondered how close to death he was just an hour ago?

  She stretched to her tiptoes, but couldn’t quite reach the showerhead. He grinned.

  “It’s not funny, Finn.” She scowled, with her hands on her hips. The effect was lost, due in large part to the fact that she was naked and wet.

  He reached up, took the showerhead down, and handed it to her. “Don’t say I never helped you.”

  “Baby, I promise you, I will never, ever say that.” She planted a kiss over his heart.

  With the
same thoroughness with which she had washed him, she rinsed each individual part. Stepping out of the shower, she snagged a towel from the shelf and wrapped it around his damp shoulders.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Better,” he said, which was true. Mostly. His bones still hurt. He was fairly certain that if he lay down and covered up, he’d fall asleep again, but he was on his feet and breathing well. “I even have an appetite.”

  She beamed at him. “Fantastic. Let’s go out.”

  “Okay,” he agreed.

  The shower had been restorative. Well, the shower and what they’d done before the shower. Maybe some fresh air would help bring him the rest of the way back to himself.

  “Still fussed about food poisoning, or can we go to Murphy’s.”

  “Why do you like it there?” he asked.

  “They have the best burgers in the state of Arizona, the most level pool table, and the cheapest juke box.” She turned toward the bedroom, where she gathered clothes from the bottom dresser drawer.

  What the hell? Did she move in while I was sleeping?

  He watched the sway of her little round backside as she bent and stepped into a pair of black lace panties. Lord, but he was a mess. Inside and out.

  “Plus,” she added, “there’s a great energy there. It’s alive. I mean…really alive. Like…manic…you know?”

  “Yeah. All the people in there are on meth. That’s what it does to you,” he said.

  She snapped her jeans and looked at him with her head tipped to one side. “Come on, Finn. Please?”

  “Yeah. Okay. Murphy’s it is. But if I relapse, it’s all on you.”

  She laughed harder than his comment warranted. “It’s a deal. I accept full responsibility.”

  He brushed his hair and teeth, trying hard not to spend too much time considering the disturbing reflection in the mirror. Moving at a snail’s pace, he managed to get dressed, and finally they reached the car. He drove toward Tombstone. The road had a soft, blurred appearance. Was he going blind on top of everything else? If he wasn’t totally better by Monday, he was definitely calling the doctor. As much as he hated doctors, it was going to be damned hard to write if he went blind.