Some Monsters Never Die

by E A Comiskey

  “We can, Grandpa. It’ll be okay. Trust me.” She squeezed his hand hard. Her eyes were steely with resolve. She gave a tiny nod, as though prompting him to go along.

  “I trust you.” He hadn’t meant to whisper, but that’s how the words came out.

  Burke turned toward The Devil. “Is it a deal? We don’t kill the skinwalker. You give Stanley back to us.”

  With a grin as wide and pretty as an oceanside sunrise, the Devil held out her hand. “It’s a deal.”

  The two women shook.

  Tentatively, The Devil reached toward the door handle once more. Her hand moved past the invisible barrier without resistance and she pushed the door open and slid to the edge of the seat. “I’ll just leave the car here. Stanley’s in the trunk. He’s probably quite thirsty, assuming he’s not dead yet,” she said. “I’d hurry, if I were you.” Then she slipped from the vehicle and the door closed with a loud snick.

  Burke was racing toward the Cadillac before Richard managed to get his feet on the ground. She ripped the keys from the ignition and ran so fast toward the rear of the vehicle, her feet slid on the rocky road.

  Richard managed to get there just as the trunk popped open to reveal Stanley, bound and gagged, wearing nothing but his boxers and the leg brace. Dirt and sweat covered his pale body. His eyes were closed.

  Burke tugged on the gag. “Stanley! Stanley, wake up!”

  She managed to pull the cloth from his mouth just as his eyelids fluttered. A pathetic smile touched his lips. “Knew you could do it,” he said before fainting away again.

  “Help me,” Burke said, and together they managed to lift him from the trunk of the car and get him inside the cool, shady SUV. Burke tipped a series of tiny sips of water into his mouth and he took them without protest.

  “Better,” he murmured, but he didn’t fully rouse.

  “We should take him to a hospital,” Richard said.

  “We don’t have time for that,” Burke answered.

  He scowled at her. “After the deal you made, we got nothin’ but time.”

  “No,” she corrected. “After the deal I made, it’s more important than ever that we get Stanley back on his feet as fast as possible.”

  “You promised we wouldn’t kill the monster,” he said.

  She grinned and he noticed that her smile in that moment bore an uncanny resemblance to The Devil’s own grin. “That’s right. I promised that we”—she waved a hand between herself and Richard—“wouldn’t kill the skinwalker. I didn’t say I wouldn’t kill it, or you wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t have presumed to speak for Stanley.”

  His mouth fell open.

  She laughed at his expression.

  “You tricked The Devil?” he asked, stupefied that she would have the nerve to try such a thing.

  “She deserved it. Did you hear that garbage about knowing the thoughts of our hearts? If she was so smart, she’d have known what I really wanted was to smack that nasty grin right off her face. Now, come on. We need to get Stanley back to the hotel so he can rest. He’s got tonight and tomorrow before the full moon, and I’m guessing he’s going to need every bit of that time.”

  She left him in charge of the SUV and climbed behind the wheel of the Cadillac. As he drove, Richard couldn’t stop grinning.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Finn

  That morning, Finn had been thinking about his mother. When she had been sick with cancer, the doctor had encouraged them to put her in hospice care.

  “Hospice?” his father had been incredulous. “I won’t give up on her like that. She’s a fighter. Didn’t you see? Just yesterday, she felt so good she wanted to take a shower and walk down to the cafeteria for lunch.”

  Finn remembered pitying the doctor. He looked exhausted and unhappy all the time. His life was full of dying people and their angry relatives.

  “It’s not giving up, Mr. O’Doyle. Hospice will be able to take measures to keep her comfortable that we can’t provide here. If she starts to rally, then, by all means, we can resume treatment. Right now, I just don’t see that as a possibility.”

  His father’s incredulity turned into purple-faced rage. “You’re not even listening. My wife’s not dying! She’s getting better! She—”

  “Mr. O’Doyle, it’s not unusual for patients to have a final burst of energy near the end. Your wife’s vitals have been slipping since yesterday evening. I don’t think she has much time left.”

  Three days later, she died while Finn was at school.

  He was convinced Friday night had been his final burst of energy. Making love to Sara, dinner in Tombstone…that was it. His last hurrah. The little excursion into town left him so debilitated he’d slept through Saturday. At least, that’s what Sara told him. Sara, who was either a saint for sticking by his side or the sinner trying to kill him. He still hadn’t decided what he believed about her. Couldn’t really bring himself to care.

  When he finally woken up sometime Sunday morning, she’d helped move him to a chair by the window and brought him a book to read. He sat in the sun, wrapped in a quilt, and chilled all the way to his guts. The book lay closed on his thighs. He couldn’t read it. The words were no more than filmy black squiggles against the creamy paper. Instead, he stared at his hands. They were old man’s hands, with wrinkled, parchment-thin skin. Age spots dotted them. The hair that grew there was white and wiry. Tendons stood out, thick ropes under brittle covering.

  All his life, he’d rode horses and done the hard work of living on a ranch. As an adult, he’d reveled in the strength and agility of his athlete's body. So, okay, he’d gotten in a bit of a slump. The cigarettes were bad, but this? This was unnatural.

  It has to be Sara, he thought. I was fine until she came. Have you ever heard of a sickness that ages a man like this? It doesn’t exist. She’s killing me.

  Another part of his mind shot back, You’re being absurd. That girl is so far head-over-heels, she won’t leave your side even when it’s the best thing for her. If she was killing you, do you think she’d feed you and nurse you and sit by your side while you sleep, to keep the nightmares away?

  The nightmares.

  He had always dreamed vividly, but this was a slow descent into a hellish madness that came upon him every time he closed his eyes. Which was more and more often these days.

  At least when I’m dead, the nightmares will stop. There. A silver lining. You’re a regular Pollyanna, Finn O’Doyle.

  I really should go to the hospital.

  Why? What did they do for your mother? If you’re going to die, best to die in the comfort of your own home.

  Sara came in with a tray of soup and juice. She set it on top of the dresser. “Hey! You’re still awake. That’s my guy. Can I talk you into eating?”

  “Maybe in a little while,” he said.

  The thought of putting food in his mouth was as appealing as the thought of putting dirt in his mouth. Nothing tasted right. There was no pleasure in eating, and eliminating what he ate was humiliating since he could barely get to the bathroom on his own.

  Sara curled up like a cat on the little window seat next to him. “Tell me something,” she said.

  “Okay,” he answered. “I never watch football, except for the Superbowl. Then I read while they’re playing and pay attention to the commercials.”

  She giggled. The sun shone on her thick hair. Her skin was smooth and tan and perfect. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

  “What do you want me to tell you, Sara?”

  “Tell me why you write.” Light sparkled in her eager eyes.

  Reporters and reviewers had asked that of him before and he’d always given some mumbo-jumbo generic answer about how he wrote because he couldn’t imagine the alternative. Sitting in that chair, half dead already, it seemed silly to hide behind falsehoods, so he told her what he’d never told anyone, “I write because it makes me feel powerful. This world is a cruel, hard, chaotic gong show. We all like to pretend tha
t we have some measure of control. We guarantee our health by eating organic bean sprouts. We guarantee our financial security by working hard and saving ten percent. We plan each day as though we own the minutes and hours of our lives, but the truth is, lightning strikes at random. In a split second, our guarantees are shattered and we see how small we are. When I write, it’s not like that. I’m in control. I say who lives and dies, who prospers or falters, who suffers and who is blessed.”

  “You’re a god,” she said, and her voice held all the awe and reverence it would if he’d been Zeus telling her why he ruled from Olympus.

  “Only when I write.”

  She breathed in deeply and shuddered. “Oh, Finn, I do love to listen to you talk. You're so different.”

  “Different from what?”

  “Different from the rest of the world. The world thinks being vivacious means dancing on the bar and singing from the mountaintop. They think the ones who are most in love with life are the ones who burn the brightest, but you”—she closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the wall, sighing in pleasure as though he were touching her—“you smolder like a coal, hot enough to smelt iron.”

  He pictured that blank white screen with its flashing black cursor. “Maybe I did once,” he said.

  “Oh, you still do. You live, Finn. You see the world around you and when you don’t love what you see, you create new worlds.” She met his eye. “Tell me more, Finn. Tell me about a story you never dared to write.”

  “Haven’t you read my reviews?” he teased. “I’m known for writing what others don’t dare say.”

  “But there’s more, isn’t there? Something that even you haven’t put down on paper yet.”

  He swallowed hard. The story had been in his heart for as long as he could remember. If he didn’t tell her now, odds were, it would die with him. “Yeah. There’s more,” he admitted.

  She leaned forward, the most attentive listener he’d ever encountered. “Tell me, Finn. Let me watch you create a world. Be a god.”

  Fatigue weighed heavily on him, but intensity was enough to carry him forward. “Okay. I’ll tell you.”

  He did. She listened with rapt attention.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Richard

  Stanley was a mess. He was still asleep when they got back to the hotel, but making strange little guttural noises in his throat. He was bright red, but the sweat that had covered him earlier was completely gone. He clutched his stomach as though it pained him, even in his sleep.

  Richard turned into the parking space, pulled forward until the SUV hit the concrete block hard enough to make his seatbelt lock, and killed the engine. Burke pulled the Cadillac into the spot next to him. Seeing as how the white line went right under the middle of the SUV, there was plenty of room between the two cars for both of them to hop out at the same moment.

  “How’s he doing?” she asked.

  “I’m not so sure.”

  He pulled the back door open, but it was Burke who laid her gentle hands on Stanley’s bare shoulders. His eyes fluttered open without focusing on anything in particular. Lying there, helpless and mostly naked on the back seat, he looked like the old man he was. It was painful to see. Richard had come to believe that Stanley was supposed to transcend age. He faced demons and hunted wild beasts with a spear and a machete. He was supposed to be above such mortal concerns as wrinkles, and certainly, nothing so mundane as heat stroke should be an issue.

  “He’s burning up,” Burke said. “Let’s get him inside.”

  They managed to haul him out of the car and onto his feet, but the motion caused him to start heaving. Richard tried his best to block Stanley from the view of anyone passing by. What would people think of a wrinkled old man in his underpants vomiting in a parking lot? Even in this town, that wasn’t normal Sunday evening behavior.

  Stanley clung to them with arms weak as an infant’s but managed to stay on his feet. “The Devil calls me Daddy,” he whimpered.

  Seriously? Richard thought he was going to puke. Friggin’ Stan Kapcheck.

  Burke rolled her eyes. “Okey-doke then. That’s just great,” she said. “Come on.” They walked toward the hotel, each with one of Stan’s arms around their shoulders, the mostly naked man with the broken leg staggering along between them.

  A woman with a little girl stepped out of her room, saw them, gasped, covered her child’s eyes, and headed off in a different direction.

  Welcome to Tombstone, Richard thought. Enjoy your stay.

  They made it to the room and lowered Stanley onto a bed.

  Burke hustled off to the bathroom and started drawing a cold bath. “Bring him in here,” she called.

  Richard glanced at Stan’s boxers. He’d faced The Devil to save the man, but he drew the line at taking his drawers off for him. He grabbed him by the arms and pulled him up again, a great limp doll.

  Stan hung on him, burning hot and mumbling. His feet stumbled across the floor. “My junk hurts,” he whimpered.

  “Oh, Lord,” Richard groaned. “I didn’t need to know that, man.”

  “What is it?” Burke asked, rising from her seat on the edge of the tub to help them.

  “Nothing,” Richard said. “And you should thank me for not telling you.”

  Stan moaned when his feet hit the water and tried so forcefully to back away from the tub that he stumbled on his bad leg and nearly succeeded in knocking them all over.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Burke insisted. “In you go, and right this instant.”

  “She’s gonna burn me up,” Stanley moaned, tears glistening in his eyes. “She won’t stop until I burn up and nothing’s left.”

  “The water will put out the fire, Stanley. Into the tub,” Burke said.

  This particular bit of crazy talk must have made sense to him because he let them lower him into the water, though he arched and cried out like the water itself burned him.

  “Maybe the hospital...” Richard began. He refused to say it out loud, but seeing Stanley like this was as terrifying as anything he’d seen since he’d embarked on this crazy adventure. The man was obviously at death’s door.

  “No,” Burke refused to give an inch. “The hospital will keep him for days. They’ll ask questions we can’t answer. We just have to cool him off. He’ll be fine.” She soaked a cloth in the cold water and rubbed it over Stan’s head and neck. “He’s going to be fine. Do you hear me, Stanley? You’re going to be fine.”

  Stanley lay in the water shivering so hard, his teeth clacked like castanets, eyes closed, not responding. Richard wondered who she was trying to convince.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Burke

  Burke washed Stanley’s body and prayed over him. She didn’t mind his nudity, though she kept him covered out of respect. It was like washing a child. When they moved him to the bed, she sat next to him and hummed what she hoped was a soothing melody. She’d made a deal with The Devil to save the man who had saved her from herself. She refused to let something so mundane as heat stroke take him away from her. He was a hunter. The greatest hunter in the world. When his time came, he’d go down fighting, not whimpering in a cheap motel room.

  “Rest now, Stanley. Get better fast. We have work to do.”

  He gave a tiny nod and, sure enough, a few minutes later, the shivering subsided and he slept peacefully.

  “Grandpa?” she asked sometime later, after Stanley’s skin had cooled to the touch and he was snoring softly.

  “Yeah, kid.”

  “You were brave today.”

  “Easy to be brave when you’ve got a partner you trust.”

  She kissed his wrinkled old cheek. “I’m going out for some food. Be back in a few minutes. Keep an eye on Stanley, okay?”

  Richard grunted. “Don’t reckon he’s in any shape to go runnin’ off.”

  Chapter Forty

  Richard

  Stanley slept through the night while Burke and Richard watched over him. In a path
etic attempt to pass the time more quickly, Burke turned on the TV. One newscaster after another droned on in the background. Neither of them paid any attention.

  They could take no action until the moon rose on Tuesday night. That meant two days of nothing but waiting. The thought made Richard’s skin crawl. Facing the monster would be a welcome relief from all this sitting around thinking about what could happen when they faced it..

  Thinking of the thing stirred up his thoughts from that morning. It seemed the Catholic church service had taken place in another lifetime. Once the idea of the monster taking on various forms bloomed in his mind, he couldn’t seem to let go of it and he ended up spending a full two hours watching out the window, certain the skinwalker, looking like StellaLuna, would come crashing through the door and kill them all.

  At long last, the sky turned from black to grey and then exploded into the obscene panorama of color that only seemed to happen in the desert.

  Stanley stirred.

  Burke rushed to his side.

  “Could I trouble you for a glass of water?” he asked. “I’m quite parched.”

  Richard beamed. The burden of worry evaporated in a warmth of affection. “Welcome back, Stan Kapcheck, you insufferable old fart.”

  ***

  The three of them sat gathered around the beds, just as they had that night in Spearfish.

  Stanley had dark purple circles under his eyes and his hand trembled when he raised the paper coffee cup to his lips, but he was alive and conscious and sitting up taking nourishment. The twinkle had returned to his eyes, even if it dimmed a little when they asked where The Devil had taken him and what he’d seen there. “We should focus on the task at hand,” he had said. “The present has more than enough complexity to hold our interest. The past is over and done with.”

  With no steering wheel to clutch, Burke tapped her nails on her right knee where it crossed her left knee. Her foot bobbed in time with the chaotic rhythm. “If it knows we’re coming for it, won’t it just hide? In two days, it will be safe. There won’t be a thing we can do.”