Fearless Genre Warriors

by Steve Lockley

  ‘Are you saying some kind of animal did this?’ At once the neighbours began to chatter enthusiastically, arguing whether it might be a cow or a goat, with the obligatory disparagement of Mexicans moving in from Pacoima.

  ‘No offence,’ the decrepit Miss Totten said, laying an ancient claw of a hand on his arm.

  ‘I’m Colombian,’ Carlos said for the umpteenth time.

  ‘It wasn’t a goat,’ the woman in the green uniform said as she thumbed the safety lock off a pair of shining hedge trimmers. She smiled but the expression looked more like a snarl. ‘Carpincho.’

  Carlos started and sweat sprang out all over his body. He rubbed at his nose, as if the phantom traces of his morillo itched him even in human form. The woman stared at him as if she knew.

  ‘Oh, that’s a myth,’ Bert said with a jovial laugh. ‘A tradition to scare people away from places no one wanted them to go. I hear the drug lords promote the idea to keep people away from their business on the border, Ms. — uh — O’Shea.’ He squinted at the letters on her chest.

  ‘Call me Sugar,’ she said. It didn’t sound like a request. ‘You’re thinking of the chupacabra there. The carpincho in English is... capybara.’ She stretched the syllables out as if her tongue were caressing each one.

  Carlos shivered.

  ‘You might know it as Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, professor.’

  Bert wrinkled his brow. ‘Water pig?’

  Sugar smiled again, looking slightly less predatory this time. ‘World’s largest rodent.’

  ‘Rodent?’ Miss Totten looked ready to faint. ‘How large?’ When Sugar held her hand up to thigh level, the crone looked ready to topple. Professor Potts offered her an arm to lean against.

  ‘In Burbank?!’ His voice betrayed disbelief. ‘Escaped from a zoo?’

  Sugar shook her head and started chopping at the broken reeds. The bright blades flashed in the shade of the dwarf willow. ‘At the risk of sounding like a nutcase, I’ll tell you there are those who say that the capybara walks on two legs at day and four at night.’

  Carlos barked with laughter, but Sugar paid him no mind. ‘There’s my bus,’ he muttered to no one in particular, hurrying his steps away from the murmuring group. He glanced at the van as he passed and another chill wriggled through his limbs.

  Anaconda: Green Lawns and Water Features.

  Carlos’ book lay open on his knees, unread. At work that day his attention wandered and he kept finding himself working his jaws back and forth unconsciously. His co-worker Jennifer tutted, ‘You’ll get TMJ!’

  The sun had begun to set as Carlos stumbled home, his reusable grocery bag stuffed with fresh greens, carrots and a huge bundle of fresh cilantro. He tossed them into the large metal salad bowl and set it on the floor, his jerky movements reflecting his frayed nerves. Carlos glanced at the window. The rosy fingers of dusk clawed at the sky. He quickly bolted the front and back door. He’d never be able to reach the locks once he changed.

  He threw himself into a chair then gasped. He had forgotten to put the toddler gate across the entrance to the cellar! Carlos leapt up, but it was too late. He fell to the linoleum with a cry of pain. His body shuddered. Then it drew into itself as he began to change.

  The hair was the worst. Carlos groaned as it pushed through his skin, unable to reach up to scratch the maddening itch. His jaws worked back and forth, back and forth. He snorted through the now-heavy snout and clambered to his webbed feet and padded over to the giant salad bowl, burying his muzzle in its intoxicating scent.

  In a trice he tossed it down and then headed for the cellar. The beast that had been Carlos made its way down the stair and nosed open the door to the backyard. Starry night greeted him. He barked softly and trotted toward the inviting wetness of the hot tub, climbing up the handicap ramp and plunging into the warm water. The salad had only whetted his appetite.

  There were lawns out there to be ravaged!

  The low whistle of a female caught his attention. The nostrils in his snout flared. But he did not catch her scent. There were only human scents around here. The beast lifted himself up on the rim of the hot tub. He narrowed his eyes.

  A dark shape moved through the hedges. Its scent filled him with fear and he struggled to clamber back out of the tub. But it was too late.

  ‘Carpincho!’ She hissed. Sugar still wore her green uniform, but over it hung a vest made — he realised with horror — from the skin of one of his kind. ‘I knew I had found you.’

  Carlos squealed in fear. He barked to raise alarm but the only one to hear him was Marie Prevost who yelled at her dog to shut up. He sank beneath the water, submerging in hopes that she would not want to come into the water after him.

  She only laughed. ‘The anaconda does not fear water, mi amigo.’ His language sounded obscene in her flat Californian voice, the final insult. He kept backing away from her, round and round as her giant knife flashed in the dark. Fear made his glands work overtime and the water spread his scent.

  Sugar inhaled deeply with a cruel grin on her lips. ‘I will harvest your scent glands for perfume, carpincho. I will make candles from your fat. And I will sell your skin to the highest bidder. The Getty Foundation bought three already.’

  Carlos floundered in the water, trying desperately to reach the lip and scramble onto the ramp, but she was there behind him, an arm snaking around his neck, and he screamed.

  The water had always been his sanctuary. Now it would be his grave.

  ‘Vaya con dios,’ Sugar said in a Schwarzenegger voice, laughing. The blade plunged into his chest and Carlos cried out. All at once he saw the Sacred Heart painting his abuelita had in her kitchen back home.

  ‘Ayúdame,’ he thought but could not say. But with the realisation Carlos knew he could find his way back and rob her of her prizes. ‘Dame la mano!’ And in his mind — his human mind — he could see his abuela with her hand outstretched to him, her white hair like a halo and a chorus of angels behind her.

  ‘I’m coming, grandmother,’ Carlos said through human lips as Sugar’s grip on his neck loosened and she cursed. He died on his feet — two of them.

  ‘Tarnation,’ the anaconda spat out. She couldn’t say what annoyed her more: the lost cash, the need to extricate herself from suspicion of murder or the contented smile on his face.

  ‘You win, carpincho,’ Sugar muttered. ‘But weeds never really die.’ She pulled the knife from his chest and climbed out of the tub, making her damp way across the yard and disappearing into the shadows.

  Carlos stared down at the drops of water clinging to the grass beside the tub. So beautiful. He didn’t even notice that blood tinged the green. Verde, que te quiero, verde. ‘How I love you, green’, he thought as he took his grandmother’s hand.

  A Very Modern Monster

  Aliya Whiteley

  From: European Monsters

  My father told me that George would sometimes come down to the Forest Inn on an evening. It was near Simonsbath, in the heart of Exmoor, and wasn’t the rustic place I was expecting, but a gastropub with a string of lights across the windows, and a busy car park. The moor had become a tourist destination for those on the hunt for an unspoiled slice of England. But no matter what kind of establishment was erected in it, it retained its character: the clouds brooded over the clumps of grasses and bogs, the gorse squatted on the roots of the blackthorn, and the dampness pervaded. It was not beautiful; its image could not have been used to sell you something. But it definitely was unspoiled. When I walked upon it, for the first time in years, I did not have the feeling that I had left footprints. No mark, no path. It was disinterested in my presence.

  For five days I waited at the Forest Inn, eating well, choosing the seats between the open fire and the largest window, so I could see over the moor. It was red, the colour of autumn, the moss rusting in the rain. I worried that I would not recognise Georg
e but as soon as he walked through the door—on my last day, the Thursday—I knew him. He was the same; the uncle who appeared rarely at family gatherings, and who brought a sense of unease into the room with him. He looked around the pub with the air of a man checking for enemies, and then his eyes fell on me. I raised a hand, and he cocked his head, then strolled to the bar and talked to the woman working there. I thought for a moment I would have to go over to him and introduce myself, but after paying for his pint he sauntered over to my table, and gave me a quizzical, penetrating stare that made me feel twenty years younger.

  ‘Uncle George,’ I said.

  He pointed a finger at me. ‘Eve. Is that right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I knew it. You look just like your mother.’

  ‘Mum’s dead,’ I said, and could say no more. He sat down beside me and patted my hand as I struggled for control. He hated people and their emotional displays; he was famous in the family for it, and I had been determined not to put him in the situation where he had to comfort me. So much for that.

  ‘What was it?’ he asked, after a few minutes of silence.

  ‘A stroke.’

  ‘Ahhhh…’ He shook his head. ‘Poor Becky. Poor Becky. How’s your Dad taking it?’

  ‘We’re all doing the best we can.’

  His only sister had died and he took it well. I’ve always wondered about that phrase, taking death well, as if it’s a pill to be swallowed, after which all symptoms will clear up. There is no way to take it well, is there? It can’t be conquered simply by acting equably in its presence.

  ‘Have you buried her yet?’ he said. The directness of it took me back for a moment.

  ‘This Saturday. I’ve been hoping to see you, to let you know. Can you come?’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he said, and I gave him the details. We didn’t discuss how he would get there, or where he would stay. Instead he asked me about my life up in Bristol, whether I liked my job as a graphic designer, if there were any young men on the scene. He said how Mum had written him long letters and sent them to the pub; I could picture her doing that. I wondered what she had told him. Then he got up to leave with only a wink in my direction, and the promise of seeing me again that Saturday.

  After he left, I felt the eyes of the woman who worked behind the bar upon me. Eventually she came over to clear away his glass, and asked me if I was all right. It seemed being in my uncle’s presence brought out a secretive, taciturn side of my personality. I told her I was fine, and let her reach her own conclusions. It was nobody’s business but mine. But I was surprised by her interest; it did not feel like a casual question. In the way she held my gaze, I could have sworn I saw a warning.

  I was aware of George, standing behind me, as they cremated my mother. He had been a boy once, a boy fond of toy guns and running around in the Devon woods. The boy grew into a soldier. Special Forces, the kind of soldier who does the dirty jobs and never speaks of it. He would emerge from that life every now and again, his thin lips pressed so tightly together in the shadow of his peppery beard.

  I remembered my birthday party, on the year he turned up out of the blue with a deep tan, and a large rectangular present. It turned out to be a board game, something cheerful, with a picture of a smiling family with very white teeth on the lid. He didn’t stay long, that day. He never did. I asked Mum why, and she said, ‘Your uncle can’t be around people.’ Soon after that he got pensioned off, and returned to Devon. I think he had a house for a while, but then his furniture arrived at our home in a large van, and I was told he had decided to live on the moor. ‘It will suit him better,’ said Mum. ‘He can take care of himself.’

  ‘But what about the Beast?’ I asked. The Beast of Exmoor was a big deal back then. Sheep were regularly being found with their throats ripped out, and a loping creature, lithe and black, had been seen, swishing a long, sinuous tail. A puma, escaped from a zoo, the other kids at school said, copying the overheard conversations of their parents.

  My mother laughed. ‘Trust me, if the Beast comes across Uncle George, it had better run the other way. Fast.’

  The coffin finished its slow journey through the red velvet curtains, and the cremation came to an end. Dad and I stood by the stone arched doorway of the chapel, shaking hands and kissing cheeks to a soft background of Mozart.

  Uncle George was the last to leave. Dad was busy talking to Mum’s old manager from the office she worked at, so George had me all to himself. Looking back on it, I think that was what he had been waiting for.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ I said, holding out my hand, and he grasped me by the wrist.

  ‘Come visit me,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you the moor, proper. I’ll show you why I came back to it and your mother went far away from it.’

  ‘That’s very kind,’ I said. ‘I, um, have a lot on, but maybe…’

  He shook his head. ‘Not a holiday. Not an obligation.’ He formed the words with distaste. ‘If you want to see something truthful, then come. Bring a sleeping bag. That’s all you’ll need.’

  I pulled my hand back; he let me go, and winked.

  ‘Well, thanks again,’ I said, and Dad turned to us and echoed my words, and I was freed from George’s intensity. A few minutes later, and he had gone. The service was over. I put away my black suit at the back of the wardrobe and returned to work, fully expecting to never see him again.

  But every now and again his offer popped into my mind, as I was working on a project, or doing the shopping, steering my trolley down the long rows of brightly coloured products, trying to choose between thirty types of breakfast cereal. Red packets, green packets, yellow packets: it brought to mind the eternal browns of Exmoor, the browns of the earth, the simplest of all colours. The moor had rolled away from the window of the Forest Inn, in all directions, the same, no matter where I looked.

  It was the beginning of December. I set out on a trip into town to buy Christmas presents, and found myself standing in a camping shop, asking the assistant what kind of sleeping bag would be best for a trip to Exmoor.

  ‘In December?’ he asked. ‘You’d better go heavy duty.’ And he loaded me up with thermals, stout walking boots, a serious rucksack, a torch, a flask, a compass, even a small stove and mess tins. By the time he had finished I felt like a soldier myself.

  George took great pleasure in examining the items in my rucksack. We sat side by side in his battered campervan, on a sofa that could fold out to make an extra bed, and he marvelled at each gadget. ‘Amazing,’ he said. ‘Did you think you were going to be out here without a scrap of shelter?’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘I’ve got Calor Gas, you know. Even a hot shower. The ranger turns a blind eye to me being out here, although I have to move the van on every now and again, just for appearances. I’m mainly here or out Oare way though. You know Oare? Where Lorna Doone was shot? Lots of old stories around these parts. Coffee? You can make it on your little stove here if you like, but I’ve got a kettle.’

  ‘Lovely.’ I started to repack my rucksack as he lit his gas ring with a match, and busied about with cups.

  ‘Right about now you must be wondering what you’re doing here,’ he said. I didn’t reply. It was late, the darkness total, pressing against the windows. When I walked into the Inn he had already been there, eating roast turkey from the Christmas menu, looking for all the world as if he was there to meet me. ‘I can show you some owls in the morning. You’ll hear them, tonight, screeching. Barn owls, that is. They screech and tawnies toowhit-toowhoo. Screech like someone being murdered, they do. I’ll show you them sleeping tomorrow. And the deer, they get so cocky out here, come right up to the door of the van. No people for miles, see, not enough of humanity for them to learn to be scared of us. There’s sheep, of course, not all fluffy like in the picture books but wild things, tangled and dirty. The gorse bushes are like giant balls of c
otton where their wool gets caught on the thorns. Crows get their eyes, sometimes, you find them blind and wandering, like beggars from the bible. And then there’s mutton for tea.’

  He placed the coffee in front of me, black, like syrup. Everything here was different. An old question popped into my mind. ‘What about the Beast?’ I said.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Is it still—out here?’

  ‘So you believe in the Beast?’ he said.

  ‘I thought it was an escaped animal. A big cat.’

  He took down a packet of biscuits from an overhead cupboard and offered them to me. ‘It’s been forty years now. How long do big cats live, can you tell me that?’ I would have searched for the answer on my phone, but there was no reception. ‘Thirteen years. And that’s the longest, not taking into account these freezing winters, the climate here. No, it’s not just an animal.’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  He smiled at me. ‘A monster.’

  Was he serious? I couldn’t tell. My mother’s words came back to me, about how he couldn’t be around people. Or maybe they shouldn’t be around him. He was my uncle, a blood relative; he had brought me presents, once upon a time. But, with his blue eyes fixed on mine, his white beard sticking out from his chapped face, there was something wild about him. Dangerous.

  ‘Stop pulling my leg,’ I said, and he laughed.

  ‘Just like your mother,’ he said, and the moment passed. He brought out some playing cards. The only game we both knew was Black Jack, and we played it for hours. He delighted in slapping down his cards on the wobbly table, shouting, making the van rock. I began to enjoy myself, as he told stories of his childhood, even of the places he had visited: the Middle East, Africa. There was never any mention of the job he had been there to do. He made it sound like a series of holidays, and I wondered what he was leaving out for my benefit. Or perhaps he really had forgotten the reality of it during his years spent out on the moor. How disconnected had he become?