Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters Read online

Last time I saw the crazy fucker was when we went down to the marina in the dead of night and broke into the main clubhouse, took out that ring of keys and found that sleek boat, the Cat, and, yeah, took the damn thing out onto the lake, the water all dark and shiny, full of green mystery, and shards of moonlight sparkling of its surface. More crazy-ass shit. Kenny and me surging along the water, throttle thrown open, the spray rising up, soaking us, and us laughing, neither one of us ever having driven a boat before, you know, and it’s funny, really funny, because this is stupid, but we don’t care, because, yeah, we’re high or drunk or both. Pirates. That’s what we are. Fucking pirates. Adventurers on the high seas. And I tell Kenny that, I say, “We’re on the high seas. Get it?”

  And Kenny, sweet doe-eyed Kenny, screws his face up, thinking. Thinking real hard. Then he gets it, you know, high seas, and cackles like, well, a peg-legged pirate with one good eye and a foul-mouthed parrot. Like any respectable pirate. A hearty chortle. Avast ye matesy!

  We take turns at the wheel, shooting along like the madmen we are, turning circles, doubling back, jumping the wakes. Up, then thunk. Man, it’s some funny shit. Really. At least for a little while.

  Soon we are so wet and stoned that it’s not fun any more. You know the feeling, right? You’re high, and pretty much anything seems like a good idea. Anything. But that feeling, like all feelings, dissipates, fritters away. So we stop the boat. And now we are floating on the lake, and the boat starts bobbing. And I’m reminded of when I was a kid and the one time my dad took me fishing, before he decided that a wife and kid were too much for one man and bailed on us. Dad got me to cast a line out, and attached to the line is a small red and white ball, called a bob, oddly enough, and I get a bite, and the bob starts, well, bobbing. Up, then down. And the boat, this slick little thing we’ve, um, borrowed, starts sort of going up and down, like that little red and white bob, you know? And my stomach is doing the same, rising, falling, and the bile in the back of my throat is like corrosive acid.

  Kenny looks green. He jumps up, wobbles to the edge of the boat and leans over. He gags and a stream of yellow puke shoots from his mouth. He straightens, wipes his mouth, turns and grins at me. Puke-eating grin, all green and yellow and crusty. He’s a sight, yeah.

  “How about another hit?” he asks, reaching into his wet pocket and retrieving a small foil pouch. And then this huge tentacle reaches up, all scaly and slimy and smelling of puke. I blink. Yup, there is it, rising up, a huge fucking tentacle, dripping fish guts, and it wraps around Kenny’s waist, yanks him off his feet, and his puke-eating grin vanishes, and his eyes bug out, fish eyes, and then, briefly, he’s smiling, eyes and mouth wide and I’ve never seen him so happy, so animated. Then whoosh, he’s gone, overboard, and all that is left is a small foil package on the boat’s floorboards, you know, and the smell of dead fish guts and vomit.

  So, being the friend I am, I stand there and blink. I’m good at that. I blink again. Still no Kenny. Still gone. But I blink, shake my head, because, really, it’s the hash or shrooms or whatever the hell we ingested from that foil pouch. I probably should have asked Kenny what it was. But it didn’t matter. He always got good shit, and it hadn’t killed me yet.

  Kenny doesn’t return. He’s gone. Vanished. Poof!

  I stagger to the edge of the boat. My stomach clenches. I retch. Nothing comes up. The water below is still, gleaming darkly. No sign of Kenny and no sign of the Kraken.

  Kraken? What the fuck is a Kraken, I think. And where the hell did that come from? Then I remember: Me and Kenny used to listen to this Scandinavian death metal, you know. And one of the bands was The Kraken. All the cover art on their CDs had this beast, a big huge mother-fucking Octopus that lives in the deep sea and attacks ships. Pirate ships. Avast mateys!

  But there can’t be a Kraken, can’t be a beast. No. It’s the drugs, baby, the hallucinogens. Kenny has fallen over. And he’s probably dead now because I’m here thinking about Norwegian death metal when I should be saving my friend.

  So, I jump overboard, into the lake—and it’s a lake for goddamn sakes, not a fucking sea, so there can’t be a Kraken—and it is cold, you know. Cold. And I sober up real fast, and swim about, but I can’t see when I’m under, it’s too dark. And it is so cold I’m beginning to tighten up, my arms and legs like lead, or some sort of heavy metal, or Scandinavian death metal, dig? And I’m chuckling because it’s funny and scary and fucked up. And I guess I’m not all that sober because I’m making self-referential jokes while Kenny is drowning. But I’m sinking too. So I struggle over to the side of the boat and manage to pull my wet, skinny-ass body back onboard.

  No sign of Kenny. Nothing. The lake is calm, motionless, a thing at rest.

  And that was the last time I saw Kenny. Until last night.

  When he called, I didn’t recognize his voice. It was garbled. Bad cell phone connection.

  But it was him all right. We chatted about old times, as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed, his voice warbling in and out as if there was some sort of interference on the line. I told him I thought he was dead and he laughed. Laughed like a madman, like a drunken pirate.

  See, I didn’t report anything. I was scared, you know. Who wouldn’t be? Fucking crazy-ass shit. Kind of surreal. Almost convinced myself none of it happened. And I guess it didn’t, because here was Kenny on the other end of the line and he sure as hell wasn’t dead. You know?

  Yeah, I was a fucking coward. Selfish bastard.

  Here’s his story: He fell overboard. Fuck, surprised we both didn’t, truth be told. That was some mighty fine mushrooms we’d consumed. He told me he went under and that he could see things really clearly, like a new world opening up to him, and he swam around for a while, like he was born to water, you know. After a bit, he surfaced, but I was gone. Or he couldn’t find the boat. (Whatever, you know? I wasn’t going to tell him that I panicked, bolted, ran the boat up onto the shore and scuttled off into the night. That I was abandoning my friend, like my old man abandoned me.) So he swam to shore. It wasn’t that difficult. It was easy, he said. The most natural thing in the world. But, he laid low. Because he’d changed. Something deep inside him broke open. Something new and wondrous and alien. And he knew the world wasn’t ready for it, for him. This was his chance to start fresh. So he moved around, changed his life. He wasn’t the same old person. Not even close. This was his second chance.

  Some story, eh?

  So we arranged to meet up at this pub down by the docks to catch some music, some Norwegian black/death metal thing. It wasn’t quite my bag anymore—I’m no kid, you see—but, fuck, it’d be great to see Kenny. Great to hear his voice.

  The place was loud, dark, smoky, and smelled of the sea. Smelled of dead fish guts and puke. A three piece band was on the tiny stage, pounding out some vaguely familiar speed thrash.

  Kenny was in a corner. He waved, a long arm beckoning. I sauntered over, took a seat. He couldn’t have picked a darker corner of the bar. I couldn’t see Kenny at all, he was a hazy shape, shifting. Then he leaned forward and I saw his eyes, only his eyes, those same sad doe eyes.

  I flagged down a server, ordered some pitchers of beer. It was too damn loud to talk, so I drank and listened to the band. Kenny didn’t touch his beer. I drank enough for the two of us. Eventually, the band took a break, and I turned to Kenny, raised my glass. “Cheers,” I said. An arm snaked out, and we clinked glasses.

  I gulped down half a beer, wiped an arm across my mouth like a thirsty pirate. “Man, I’m glad to see you,” I said. “I really thought you were dead.”

  Kenny’s dark shadow stirred. I could smell seaweed. He spoke, and his voice vacillated between a watery tremble and a sonorous rumble. A voice of deep seas and even deeper night skies.

  “I’ve never been so alive,” he said. “Before, I never quite fit in. I was different. I don’t think I ever really belonged here. And I was right. There was something else out there. Something for me.” He gestured, and throug
h the smoky darkness I caught a faint glimmer of an arm waving upward. “But it wasn’t up there,” he said. “It was the sea.” I imagined I heard a watery chuckle. “I’m a pirate, of sorts.”

  Then Kenny leaned in, across the table, and I saw him for what he’d become, for what he really was. “But even pirates get lonely,” he said.

  And I thought about what it means to be a friend, to be there for someone. Thought about what I was, what I’d become. Kenny was proof that people change. That I could change.

  So I took Kenny home.

  Kenny the Kraken smiled, wide. His mouth was large and deep and black. Dead things swam in its depths. His eyes were bulbous fish eyes, and they regarded me with sad, alien innocence.

  I reached over, plugged the sink, turned on the tap. Kenny lolled in the water. I plucked a can of sardines from the refrigerator and began to feed them to Kenny. It was the least I could do for my friend.

  Underneath Me, Steady Air

  Carrie Laben

  Rosemary’s is always this dark, but it’s a good dark. If you come here at night to drink with the hipsters and hipster-watchers, it’s illuminated by strings of year-round Christmas lights and the dull glow of the jukebox. If you come in the afternoon to drink with the old men with tracheotomies and slumped backs, the sun never reaches the third bar stool. Squint a little and you can believe you’re in a bunker underground. I still feel safe here, after everything.

  I drank at Rosemary’s with Ginger and Carol and Steve the night before. I started around five with the vague plan that I’d cut it off and leave myself plenty of time to sleep, since I had to work the next day. Then I started drinking to forget that I had to work the next day. Then I did forget that I had to work the next day.

  This is a long way of explaining why my story might sound unfocused, spotty. And, let’s be honest, self-centered. There’s nothing that inspires more self-centeredness than a hangover, and I was shitty hung over that day.

  I made it out of the house on autopilot, it hit me in the subway: tightness in the skin over my skull, feet irritable in my cheap-cute rubber rain boots, and most of all the blue pain of hunger in a slightly nauseated stomach. But I was two trains into the commute by then, which made it harder to turn back than to go on.

  The rain had mostly stopped by the time I got there. As I emerged from the subway station, I caught a flash of movement and looked up. I would have split my skull on the sun if it hadn’t been for a little cloud—a scrap of fog, really—just above the building that turned the light all pinkish-gray.

  As it was, I winced and blinked and, seeing nothing important, turned my focus back to the pavement and cigarette butts and sodden pages of the Post.

  The elevators in that building were saunas, prone to breaking down. I remember thinking that I could maybe claim that I’d been stuck in one; I looked shitty enough. It was something I often thought about trying. But I figured they could check with the maintenance guys, I’d get busted, which would be even more embarrassing.

  As soon as I stepped through the door of the office I was struck by how quiet it was. To the point that I wondered if I’d somehow forgotten a day off. But Rosemary’s redecorates for every holiday known to humankind, including Arbor Day. I’d have noticed.

  I came around the corner of the first row of cubes and spotted my boss and my boss’s boss. They couldn’t miss me. I tried to brace myself, but that would have required something to brace, and I felt invertebrate.

  Neither of them said anything as I approached. Neither of them even looked up. They weren’t talking, I remember thinking they both looked sad, sore. I wondered if they’d decided to fire me.

  “Hey,” I said, trying to sound casual, actually sounding dehydrated. “Good morning.” And they each nodded slowly, but neither of them replied as I entered my cubicle. By the time my computer finished starting up, a peek over the wall revealed that they’d drifted away.

  I figured something in email might account for their behavior, but no—the company hadn’t been sold, or sued, or the server farm set on fire, there hadn’t been any layoffs. There were no new emails at all except the autogenerated one I got every Monday reminding me to update my time sheets.

  I got some coffee, read some blogs. The worst of the pounding and lurching inside faded away. By lunchtime, I was ready to risk the break room.

  As I came back along the corridor, I heard a dull hiss, the sound of something scraping over the dense industrial carpet. A moment later the receptionist, Jeannette, came around the corner pushing a box of printer paper along the floor.

  It started my brain and stomach pulsing again, the way she was bent like something out of Bosch with her knees crooked and her bowed back in the air. Normally she could lift three of those boxes. She was flushed a shade of orange I’d never seen on a human being before, beyond the worst nightmares of spray tan, and the tip of her tongue was protruding from her mouth.

  As bad off as I was, I knew I needed to help her. But before the words could wriggle down from my brain and through my clamped jaw, she fell over. Not collapsed, not fell down—fell over, to the side, stiffly.

  I knelt on the floor beside her, put my coffee against the wall—where I promptly kicked it over—and felt for her pulse. Her wrist was slick with greasy sweat and I couldn’t find it. But she was still alive, because she was still breathing, because something was making that moaning noise and pushing the horrible greenish foamy drool out.

  I couldn’t figure out what to do, and then I thought she might be contagious, and I was kneeling in now-cold coffee-damp pants on the now-cold coffee-damp rug. I reached in my pocket for my phone, but of course I’d left it in my bag, back at my desk.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Jeanette, though I doubted she could hear me, and heaved myself back to my feet. Walking backwards, unwilling to take my eyes off her, I found myself among the cubes of the QA team.

  “Someone better call 911.” No one answered, and for a moment I wondered if I’d only thought it, but then I turned around and saw Angel slumped at her desk and Karl at his, both foaming and staring blankly, both as orange as Jeanette.

  I don’t know how I made myself reach across Karl and pick up his phone. I don’t remember what I said to the woman who answered. Sometime between when I hung up and when the EMTs arrived, I got back to my desk. I even retrieved my empty mug along the way.

  Yeah, some inspiring story of survival. Honestly, it’s probably a good thing that I lost so much of my hospital stay. I’m not sure who broke it to me that I was the only survivor to come out of the office. I have vague memories of people interrogating me and yelling about bioterrorism. And then later different people telling me that it had all been some kind of weird gas leak, and that I didn’t need to talk to the press if I didn’t want to, and that, by the way, I definitely didn’t want to. That I might be confused or have hallucinations. That they’d given me some kind of weird experimental drug that was supposed to prevent PTSD but also fucked with my short-term memory kind of a lot.

  But I remembered enough to bet that what I’d seen wasn’t a gas leak, even before the weird crap started happening.

  You’d think I wouldn’t keep coming back here, wouldn’t you? I was on this exact fucking stool the first time I got one of those calls. You’d think I’d have the good goddamn sense to be creeped out. But I get angry and think, why should I let them scare me off? It was my bar first.

  Yeah, the calls were what started it. They didn’t start until almost three months after I got out of the hospital, but then again, for most of that time I didn’t have a phone. My old phone, along with everything in my bag and my office, my wallet, my keys, my coffee mug, my boots, got swept into the maw of evidence control and were never heard from again.

  If it hadn’t been for Ginger I’d probably still be living on cash and self-pity, but she got me through the convoluted process of getting everything back in order. Out of all my friends, she was the one who kept up with me instead of coming to visit a c
ouple of times and then getting weirded out by the hamster wheel of no explanations that my brain was on and drifting away. She was the one who told the reporters to fuck off and leave me alone when they tracked me down. She was the one who smiled at the cops when they came by after the reporters left, and assured them that everything was just fine, officer. She listened to me when I explained what I’d seen, or thought I’d seen. And then when I didn’t want to talk about it she didn’t bring it up.

  She also let me stay with her, which was really key because I wasn’t sleeping so great in my old apartment by myself. Her place was right on Bedford Avenue and we came down to Rosemary’s almost every night, to take the edge off.

  One night, when the edge had been blunted, my phone rang.

  At first I thought I was just confused by the noise of conversation and the blaring jukebox. I shouted “Hello” three times, then realized I was talking to a recording. But it wasn’t about one of my many unpaid bills or a political candidate. It wasn’t about anything, it didn’t make any sense no matter how I tried to push through the beer and concentrate.

  The voice didn’t have a gender or age that I could pin down, and it didn’t sound like any machine voice I’d ever heard either. When I tried to understand it, the syllables slid away. Yet there was a tone of urgency that made me keep trying. I finally got up and left Ginger watching my drink and took it outside.

  On the sidewalk the words were still evasive, but eventually I got them. That didn’t really help, though.

  Numbers. No nouns or verbs or context, no discernible pattern. Just an endless string of numbers in that slippery voice.

  I don’t know how long I stood out there, waiting for it to end or say something else or for some kind of pattern to emerge. Eventually I felt a tap on my shoulder, flinched away, and turned to find Ginger behind me.

  “The hell?” she said. “Are you ok?”

  “Listen to this.” I shoved the phone at her, and she put it to her ear and frowned.