How to Make Monsters Read online

  And all of them were vying for the attention of those they resembled. It seemed to me that all these faint doppelgangers wanted was some kind of confirmation of their own existence, a word, a glance, a gesture…

  But what where they? Ghosts? If so, why did they look like mutated versions of the people they were stalking? And what the hell did they want anyway?

  It didn’t take long for me to construct a plausible theory.

  Night fell, and I found myself walking down by the river. The moon smeared the water with a silverish glaze, and I could hear little waves breaking on the litter-lined shore. I looked up at the underside of the High Level Bridge, the rusty steel beams, the weird tatty pieces of rope that were tied to stanchions like so many unused methods of suicide. My thoughts wandered through that barren landscape, looking for clues.

  What if they were the ghosts of our selves, haunting their corporeal vessels? The sides of us that we neglect in the blind headlong rush into modernity and empty consumerism – the creative side, the caring side, the untended part of us that isn’t so hard-bitten and jaded.

  And what if they are fading as our society becomes harder, harsher, more insular? As we lose our empathy for others, our sense of being more than just another rat in the race, what if these other, softer selves are gradually being reduced to nothing; mere suggestions of shadows on the wall, hushed noises in the night?

  When we see a ghost, we are actually seeing ourselves, a forgotten part of our humanity left to rot, to grow stale and listless. That is why phantoms are always so familiar; and instead of realising the truth, we assume that we have seen the spirits of long-dead friends and relatives, when in reality we are catching a glimpse of ourselves. Each of us is haunted, but few of us ever stand still long enough to ask why, or by whom.

  It takes too great a paradigm shift, far too much of a sideways step outside a lifetime of human conditioning, to allow us to see the truth.

  I went back to High Bridge Street every weekend for the next month, hoping to catch sight of her getting out of another taxi outside another expensive clothes shop. Last time I hadn’t been paying sufficient attention; next time I would make sure.

  Finally she came back, this time with a friend - some other bored middle-class hausfrau looking to spend her partner’s hard-earned crust on a late-night shopping trip. When she stepped out onto the rain-shined pavement, I turned quickly away, employing peripheral vision.

  And there it was, sitting on her shoulders like a grim little monkey: a heavily creased, semi-transparent entity, beating her about the head and the back of the neck and trying desperately to gain her attention. Its face was small, dried-up and wrinkled like a raisin, its hands twisted into tough claws. It was a part of her that was now lost forever, a single shard of her psyche screaming into the void that was slowly swallowing it up.

  And my ex wife couldn’t see it at all.

  I walked away into drizzle and near-darkness, catching sight of my reflection in a wet shop window. I watched myself watching myself, taking note of every detail, each tiny flaw in the sum of my parts. The picture that stared back at me seemed to intensify briefly, gaining substance for a moment. Then the traffic noise and the toneless chatter of those around me pulled me back into the land of the not-quite living. The reflection was simply that: an inverted image of a dirty man on a wet street.

  ****

  There is hope left for some, the one’s whose ghosts are reasonably intact, and who are aware enough to nurture the essence of what it is to be truly alive. But for those whose humanity is already frail, battered and etiolated, there is no hope left at all.

  PUMPKIN NIGHT

  “Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.”

  Sir Francis Bacon, “Of Death”

  Essays (1625)

  The pumpkin, faceless and eyeless, yet nonetheless intimidating, glared up at Baxter as he sat down opposite with the knife.

  He had cleared a space on the kitchen table earlier in the day, putting away the old photographs, train tickets, and receipts from restaurants they had dined at over the years. Katy had kept these items in a large cigar box under their bed, and he had always mocked her for the unlikely sentimentality of the act. But now that she was dead, he silently thanked her for having such forethought.

  He fingered the creased, leathery surface of the big pumpkin, imagining how it might look when he was done. Every Halloween Katy had insisted upon the ritual, something begun in her family when she was a little girl. A carved pumpkin, the task undertaken by the man of the house; the seeds and pithy insides scooped out into a bowl and used for soup the next day. Katy had always loved Halloween, but not in a pathetic Goth-girl kind of way. She always said that it was the only time of the year she felt part of something, and rather than ghosts and goblins she felt the presence of human wrongdoing near at hand.

  He placed the knife on the table, felt empty tears welling behind his eyes.

  Rain spat at the windows, thunder rumbled overhead. The weather had taken a turn for the worse only yesterday, as if gearing up for a night of spooks. Outside, someone screamed. Laughter. The sound of light footsteps running past his garden gate but not stopping, never stopping here.

  The festivities had already started. If he was not careful, Baxter would miss all the fun.

  The first cut was the deepest, shearing off the top of the pumpkin to reveal the substantial material at its core. He sliced around the inner perimeter, levering loose the bulk of the meat. With great care and dedication, he managed to transfer it to the glass bowl. Juices spilled onto the tablecloth, and Baxter was careful not to think about fresh blood dripping onto creased school uniforms.

  Fifteen minutes later he had the hollowed-out pumpkin before him, waiting for a face. He recalled her features perfectly, his memory having never failed to retain the finer details of her scrunched-up nose, the freckles across her forehead, the way her mouth tilted to one side when she smiled. Such a pretty face, one that fooled everyone; and hiding behind it were such unconventional desires.

  Hesitantly, he began to cut.

  The eyeholes came first, allowing her to see as he carried out the rest of the work. Then there was the mouth, a long, graceful gouge at the base of the skull. She smiled. He blinked, taken by surprise. In his dreams, it had never been so easy.

  Hands working like those of an Italian Master, he finished the sculpture. The rain intensified, threatening to break the glass of the large kitchen window. More children capered by in the night, their catcalls and yells of “Trick or treat!” like music to his ears.

  The pumpkin did not speak. It was simply a vegetable with wounds for a face. But it smiled, and it waited, a noble and intimidating presence inhabiting it.

  “I love you,” said Baxter, standing and leaning towards the pumpkin. He caressed it with steady hands, his fingers finding the furrows and crinkles that felt nothing like Katy’s smooth, smooth face. But it would do, this copy, this effigy. It would serve a purpose far greater than himself.

  Picking up the pumpkin, he carried it to the door. Undid the locks. Opened it to let in the night. Voices carried on the busy air, promising a night of carnival, and the sky lowered to meet him as he walked outside and placed Katy’s pumpkin on the porch handrail, the low flat roof protecting it from the rain.

  He returned inside for the candle. When he placed it inside the carved head, his hands at last began to shake. Lighting the wick was difficult, but he persevered. He had no choice. Her hold on him, even now, was too strong to deny. For years he had covered up her crimes, until he had fallen in line with her and joined in the games she played with the lost children, the ones who nobody ever missed.

  Before long, he loved it as much as she did, and his old way of life had become nothing but a rumour of normality.

  The candle flame flickered, teased by the wind, but the rain could not reach it. Baxter watched in awe as it flared, licking o
ut of the eyeholes to lightly singe the side of the face. The pumpkin smiled again, and then its mouth twisted into a parody of laughter.

  Still, there were no sounds, but he was almost glad of that. To hear Katy’s voice emerging from the pumpkin might be too much. Reality had warped enough for now; anything more might push him over the edge into the waiting abyss.

  The pumpkin swivelled on its base to stare at him, the combination of lambent candlelight and darkness lending it an obscene expression, as if it were filled with hatred. Or lust.

  Baxter turned away and went inside. He left the door unlocked and sat back down at the kitchen table, resting his head in his hands.

  Shortly, he turned on the radio. The DJ was playing spooky tunes to celebrate the occasion. Werewolves of London, Bela Lugosi’s Dead, Red Right Hand . . . songs about monsters and madmen. Baxter listened for awhile, then turned off the music, went to the sink, and filled the kettle. He thought about Katy as he waited for the water to boil. The way her last days had been like some ridiculous horror film, with her bedridden and coughing up blood – her thin face transforming into a monstrous image of Death.

  She had not allowed him to send for a doctor, or even call for an ambulance at the last. She was far too afraid of what they might find in the cellar, under the shallow layer of dirt. Evidence of the things they had done together, the games they had played, must never be allowed into the public domain. Schoolteacher and school caretaker, lovers, comrades in darkness, prisoners of their own desires. Their deeds, she always told him, must remain secret.

  He sipped his tea and thought of better days, bloody nights, the slashed and screaming faces of the children she had loved – the ones nobody else cared for, so were easy to lure here, out of the way, to the house on the street where nobody went. Not until Halloween, when all the streets of Scarbridge, and all the towns beyond, were filled with the delicious screaming of children.

  There was a sound from out on the porch, a wild thrumming, as if Katy’s pumpkin was vibrating, energy building inside, the blood lust rising, rising, ready to burst in a display of savagery like nothing he had ever seen before. The pumpkin was absorbing the power of this special night, drinking in the desires of small children, the thrill of proud parents, the very idea of spectres abroad in the darkness.

  It was time.

  He went upstairs and into the bedroom, where she lay on the bed, waiting for him to come and fetch her. He picked her up off the old, worn quilt and carried her downstairs, being careful not to damage her further as he negotiated the narrow staircase.

  When he sat her down in the chair, she tipped to one side, unsupported. The polythene rustled, but it remained in place.

  Baxter went and got the pumpkin, making sure that the flame did not go out. But it never would, he knew that now. The flame would burn forever, drawing into its hungry form whatever darkness stalked the night. It was like a magnet, that flame, pulling towards itself all of human evil. It might be Halloween, but there were no such things as monsters. Just people, and the things they did to each other.

  He placed the pumpkin in the sink. Then, rolling up his sleeves, he set to work on her body. He had tied the polythene bag tightly around the stump of her neck, sealing off the wound. The head had gone into the ice-filled bath, along with...the other things, the things he could not yet bring himself to think about.

  The smell hit him as soon as he removed the bag, a heavy meaty odour that was not at all unpleasant. Just different from what he was used to.

  Discarding the carrier bag, he reclaimed the pumpkin from the sink, oh-so careful not to drop it on the concrete floor. He reached out and placed it on the stub of Katy’s neck, pressing down so that the tiny nubbin of spine that still peeked above the sheared cartilage of her throat entered the body of the vegetable. Grabbing it firmly on either side, a hand on each cheek, he twisted and pressed, pressed and twisted, until the pumpkin sat neatly between Katy’s shoulders, locked tightly in place by the jutting few inches of bone.

  The flame burned yellow, blazing eyes that tracked his movements as he stood back to inspect his work.

  Something shifted, the sound carrying across the silent room – an arm moving, a shoulder shrugging, a hand flexing. Then Katy tilted her new head from side to side, as if adjusting to the fit.

  Baxter walked around the table and stood beside her, just as he always had, hands by his sides, eyes wide and aching. He watched as she shook off the webs of her long sleep and slowly began to stand.

  Baxter stood his ground when she leaned forward to embrace him, fumbling her loose arms around his shoulders, that great carved head looming large in his vision, blotting out the rest of the room. She smelled sickly-sweet; her breath was tainted. Her long, thin fingers raked at his shoulder blades, seeking purchase, looking for the familiar gaps in his armour, the chinks and crevices she had so painstakingly crafted during the years they had spent together.

  When at last she pulled away, taking a short shuffling step back towards the chair, her mouth was agape. The candle burned within, lighting up the orange-dark interior of her new head. She vomited an orangery-pulp onto his chest, staining him. The pumpkin seeds followed – hundreds of them, rotten and oversized and surging from between her knife-cut lips to spatter on the floor in a long shiver of putrescence. And finally, there was blood. So much blood.

  When the stagnant cascade came to an end, he took her by the arm and led her to the door, guiding her outside and onto the wooden-decked porch, where he sat her in the ratty wicker chair she loved so much. He left her there, staring out into the silvery veil of the rain, breathing in the shadows and the things that hid within them. Was that a chuckle he heard, squeezing from her still-wet mouth?

  Maybe, for a moment, but then it was drowned out by the sound of trick-or-treaters sprinting past in the drizzly lane.

  He left the door ajar, so that he might keep an eye on her. Then, still shaking slightly, he opened the refrigerator door. On the middle shelf, sitting in a shallow bowl, were the other pumpkins, the smaller ones, each the size of a tennis ball. He took one in each hand, unconsciously weighing them, and headed for the hall, climbing the stairs at an even pace, his hands becoming steady once more.

  In the small room at the back of the house, on a chipboard cabinet beneath the shuttered window, there sat a large plastic dish. Standing over it, eyes cast downward and unable to lift his gaze to look inside, Baxter heard the faint rustle of polythene. He straightened and listened, his eyes glazed with tears not of sorrow but of loss, of grief, and so much more than he could even begin to fathom.

  Katy had died in childbirth. Now that she was back, the twins would want to join their mother, and the games they would play together promised to be spectacular.

  OWED

  Lana sat on the floor, in the centre of the ransacked room, holding her face and trying not to cry. It wouldn’t help for Hayley to see her in tears; the girl had already gone through far too much. She stared at the place where the television used to be, the space on the sideboard the stereo had once occupied, and was filled with such an overpowering sense of loss that it felt as if the earth beneath her might crack and split, spilling forth all the demons from her personal version of hell.

  “Mummy.” Hayley stood in the doorway, her pale hands clutching Mr. Bear by his well-worn ear. She had on her nightdress – it was early; still well before noon – and her long blonde hair was mussed. Her eyes were wide and bright and colourless, like those of her beloved dolls. At fourteen, she was too young to cling to these toys, but Lana didn’t have the heart to show her too many of life’s bitter truths – the twin realities of their terrible financial situation and Hayley’s disorder were more than enough for the girl to cope with.

  “I’m okay, honey. Mummy’s fine.” Lana’s jaw ached where the man had hit her – a quick backhanded blow that knocked her off her feet – but the lie hurt her far more than a superficial injury ever could.

  “Did they take the TV?”


  Lana nodded; the sudden motion set stars spinning across her field of vision. “Yes, honey. They took everything.” The TV, the stereo, the computer; her daughter’s second-hand IPod and games console: all of it.

  Hayley shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her fingers playing with the seam of Mr. Bear’s ear. Her thin face looked transparent, barely there, and the bones of her shoulders showed through the thin material of her pink nightdress. Often, when Lana looked at her daughter, she felt like weeping; other times – times like this – she felt like destroying the world.

  “You go back into your room and get dressed. Mummy just needs to clean up.” Lana stood shakily, her eyes losing track of the room, legs quivering, and moved over to the window. She stared down at the street, glad that the long black car was gone and the goons had returned to Bright’s side. “Go on now.”

  “Yes, Mummy.” Hayley shuffled next door and began to open and close drawers, choosing what she would wear. She was bad with decisions: she would be in there for some time, staring at her clothes and agonising over each potential outfit with the door locked and bolted to keep her developing curves out of sight.

  “Bastards,” said Lana, under her breath. The two men had said they would be back if she didn’t repay the debt in full, including the obscene amount of interest it had accrued. They’d also said that, if she no longer possessed enough goods to substitute for cash, other arrangements could be made. The salacious look in the eyes of the one who’d hit her was unmistakable; the way his partner had turned towards Hayley’s room was even more disturbing.

  “Bastards,” she said again, but with less feeling this time. Her anger was subsiding. There was little she could do. The sky outside was growing dark and overcast; clouds were merging into a single solid mass. Rain spattered the window, gentle as baby spit, and Lana was forced to look away from the dour scene.