Keep in a Cold, Dark Place

by Michael Stewart

  The entry was easier to defend than the entire barn, but the chupacabra could focus their attacks too, and the tube of burlap made it harder to swing a pitchfork and a rake. Limpy hastened with every grunt and cry of pain from her father and Dylan, who fought hidden inside the burlap.

  “Can’t hold them much longer,” Dylan said after a few minutes.

  “Well, you have to,” she said. And her fingers jabbed and pulled. Finally she set to adding the new material to the tube already hanging.

  Connor and Emmanuel shoveled madly, dirt and pebbles spraying from stone walls. Mr. José gripped his silver-tinted chupacabra tight in both hands, fingers about the creature’s neck. It had grown already. Limpy frowned at the fur sloughing from it. Why did some grow quickly and others shrink? Why would Mr. José have said that they each have one? If only she had time to sit and think, time to discuss with Mr. José the true nature of these creatures. Oddly, it seemed as though Mr. José didn’t want to tell her everything he knew. But there was no time to discover why.

  The tube was finished. She left a slit in the fabric through which to push the freezer.

  “Ready,” she shouted, but she really wasn’t—not for what Limpy knew she must do next.

  Dylan wrestled the burlap aside and climbed out of the tube, flushed and followed by his father. His face had been battered. Beneath his eye a bruise darkened and scratches wept blood along his cheeks.

  “Get the freezer in,” Limpy said, and they pushed it through the gap. It landed in the bottom of the great burlap sack. “Good work, Connor. You too, Emmanuel.” She didn’t know why, but saying so heated her cheeks. She set to work with the needle and twine to close the gap before the chupacabra could land. She left a small opening at the bottom and turned to the men.

  No chupacabra dropped into the freezer.

  “What are they waiting for?” Dylan asked. His eyes were fierce, but she could see by the way they darted back and forth that he was afraid.

  “Maybe they gave up,” her father suggested, but it was halfhearted.

  “Maybe they’re gonna leave?” Dylan said.

  Connor peered out the window and shook his head.

  “We can’t let them leave. I’m going in,” Limpy said. This had been her plan. She’d expected to need bait, something to attract the chupacabra into the freezer.

  “Don’t be acting the maggot,” her father said.

  “No, Dad, I’m not. We have to stop them and we need something to get them into the freezer.”

  “Food,” Dylan said.

  “I guess,” Limpy replied. “But I think it’s more than that. Bait.”

  “I’ll go,” her father said.

  “No,” she said. “I can do this. Just wait until the last is inside and then pull me out. After, I’ll cinch the top of the burlap and—”

  “And what, Limphetta?” Emmanuel cried. “Hope they’ll shrink? This is crazy.”

  “You think you can fight those monsters? You won’t last a minute,” her father said.

  It was the kind of thing he’d said to her for years. Always beating her down as not good enough, or important enough, and perhaps for once he was right—Limpy couldn’t defeat four chupacabra—but she wasn’t going to accept defeat anymore.

  “I can try,” she said. “I will. And I’m not afraid.”

  With the flat of her hand, she pushed her father backward. Nothing would ever be the same. Before anyone could stop her, she scrambled though the hole in the burlap and jumped into the bottom of the freezer. As she looked up, something chittered down at her, but she couldn’t see a thing.

  “Give me the flashlight,” she said and stuck an arm back out of the burlap. Someone caught her wrist and held it firmly as if they planned on yanking her out. Then the fingers relaxed and a sweaty flashlight pressed into her palm.

  “Thanks, Dad,” she said and shone the light.

  Four fans of teeth drooled down on her like leaky shower faucets.

  “Come on, you!” she shouted. All her pain, all her frustration at feeling trapped, the lack of her family’s belief in her, it all formed a meaty stew. It was time for her to believe in herself regardless of what school she went to. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that her art was good. She knew it. She loved it, and she hollered, “Come on, Chup! Come and get me!”

  With that, a tiny, cute, fuzzy Chup landed in her palms.

  Chapter 32

  When Limpy screamed, Connor stuck his head through the burlap.

  She saw the question in his eyes and lifted Chup up so that he could see it. Chup had reverted to a fluffy ball of fur with enormous, sad eyes, as if sorry for everything it had done.

  What had changed? Then she had it. She knew.

  “My baby girl’s dying!” screeched her father.

  “No, Dad,” she yelled and grabbed Connor’s hand to pull him farther in, but he resisted. “Chup hatched when I was scared I’d always be stuck here. And they didn’t really start growing until the offer on the farm arrived.” The box hadn’t called to her from the cellar depths. Her fear had wakened them.

  “What do you mean, Limphetta?” her father asked.

  “Fear, they feed on fear. The Millars stopped them years ago, because they had nothing left to lose. They didn’t fear them or anything. They faced them without fear. All the articles in the Herald I read. Mr. Flesh feared aliens, the Ryders supernatural forces. All the headlines in Mr. José’s scrapbook had fear in them: thieves, contagions, asteroids. All feared!”

  She tugged again for Connor. He pressed his lips together as if scared some word might slip out.

  “Connor, come in, we can stop them. Just confront your fears. What are you afraid of?”

  Connor pulled himself the rest of the way inside the tube of burlap and stood as silent as ever. His gaze traveled from the fluffy chicklike creature in Limpy’s hands to the demonic aliens above him.

  “Well?” Limpy asked. “If you conquer your fears, it turns them back into harmless chicks. What do you fear?”

  He clenched his jaw and shook his head.

  She wracked her brain for clues. “You must know—why haven’t you talked all these years? You have to call your fears out and face them.”

  A sharp, blue talon swiped downward, forcing them both to duck.

  “We don’t want one that big to land in here,” Limpy said. Chup swelled in her hand. “Look what you’re making me do! I’m growing scared again. Think!”

  Podge shot spittle over them. Of course, mute Podge was Connor’s chupacabra. Connor looked at his hands and his mouth turned down, his eyes filling with tears.

  “Connor.” She hugged him with one arm. “What is it?”

  His shoulders heaved as he sobbed. “I’m . . . I’m . . .” He sniffed.

  Limpy glanced up. Podge was humongous. Both its shoulders scraped the side of the entry as it pressed down.

  Connor had spoken. Not much, but a little. This was it. She tried to still all of her own fear, all concern for herself, and spoke in a placid, even voice. “You’re . . . what, Connor?”

  “Stupid!” He spoke with such ferocity that she flinched back.

  “What?” she asked. “Stupid? Who ever called you stupid?”

  He hunched.

  “Dad called you stupid,” she guessed.

  But Connor was shaking his head.

  “Dylan . . . but he’s just . . . Dylan.” Connor shook his head again.

  “Then who? Me? When?”

  He gave a sniveling laugh. “No . . . Mama. Mama called me Thicko, when I made mistakes.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Mama.”

  “Yeah, Mama,” he said. “After she died Dad was so sick and sad. I couldn’t be . . . cross.”

  Limpy understood. For the last thirteen years, Connor had been trapped with the effigy of his mother and unable to say anything nice about her, so he said nothing at all. Worse still, he thought himself dumb with nothing worth saying anyway.

  “But she’s gone, Connor, you
can speak and if she’s listening, I think she’ll understand.”

  He nodded as Podge lunged. If it hadn’t shrunk the couple of inches just then, the swipe might have taken off Connor’s head. Instead, the creature overbalanced and the claw became stuck in the burlap. Connor’s face reddened, filling with rage until he finally burst into action, leaping up with both hands to catch Podge’s forelimb and drag the whole thing to the bottom of the cellar. It filled the burlap sack. It filled the freezer. Limpy pressed back against the sack, dodging flailing limbs.

  Connor screamed at it. “Why did you tease me? Why?”

  Limpy knew he wasn’t screaming at the chupacabra, which shrank steadily beneath him. The creature’s jaws retracted until only the surprised mouth remained.

  “You’re doing it,” Limpy said.

  Then Connor turned to her.

  “Am I stupid?” he asked.

  Limpy placed a hand on his shoulder. “I . . . don’t think so. But to find out, you have to . . . try things.”

  “Like art school?”

  Limpy flushed. “I guess, yeah. And like the books you’re reading.”

  When Podge had shrunk to a fuzzy, blue chick size, Connor let it fall on the ground where it emitted an injured chup.

  “I’m not thicko,” Connor said and kicked the chick with his toe—not hard—just enough to prove to himself that he’d won.

  Ghost and Tufts stared down at them from above. No longer did they chitter, or hiss, or howl. They eyed Limpy through slitted eyes.

  “Dylan!” Limpy called. “Dylan! Get in here.”

  Dylan stuck his head inside after Connor got out.

  “What’d you do to Connor?” Then he saw the blue puffball in the bottom of the freezer and added, “What do I have to do?”

  “The red’s yours. I call him Ghost,” she said and flashed the light on the ladder and up through the hole where the razor talons of the red monster curled. Ghost who never trusted anyone. Ghost who could hit a sparrow’s eye with a potato.

  “It’s . . . so big. I can’t fight that.” His eyes were round and he pressed his back up against the burlap.

  “It’s big ’cause you’re scared.”

  “Course I’m scared, it’s big and freaky!”

  “But it’ll shrink, if you can stop feeling scared.” Once more she held up Chup, who squeaked.

  He arched an eyebrow up at Ghost, looking less like a puffball and more like a dragon. “And that’s what Connor did? He stopped being scared of that?”

  Limpy peeked at Podge only to find it sniffing at her foot.

  “That’s not the fear you need to conquer. It’s not fear of the chupacabra. You’re scared of something else. It’s your deepest fear.”

  “What?” Dylan asked. “What’s my deepest fear?”

  “I dunno, that’s what you have to figure out.” She almost called him thicko—this was frustrating.

  “Oh.” Dylan never took his eyes off the big red. It stared at Dylan as if he were a present wrapped in a burlap package.

  “Okay, so . . . I’m not scared of you,” he said, his voice trembling.

  The creature’s jaws retracted, but it didn’t shrink. Wood splinters sifted down where its talons gripped the edges of the hole. It leaned toward them.

  “Hold still,” Limpy whispered. “It feeds on your fear. If you aren’t afraid, it can’t hurt you.”

  “What if I still am?” he said as Ghost’s head and shoulders passed the entry and closed on Dylan’s face.

  Limpy didn’t answer. The answer was pretty obvious. It would eat him.

  “Why do you punch people?” she asked. “Are you afraid they’ll think you’re stupid?”

  His Adam’s apple bulged as he swallowed hard. “Nah,” he said.

  “Then, why?” The big red twisted so that its eye was a mere inch from Dylan’s nose. “Why would yours grow when the offer for the farm arrived?”

  “Out there,” he spoke fast and low. “Outside the farm. It’s not for me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His hand clenched into a fist. Limpy was pretty sure who it was meant for. Not the chupacabra, but rather Limpy, and seeing it she knew she’d hit the right nerve.

  She thought back to Dylan’s anger over her desire to leave the farm. His avoidance of the questions about why he’d never left.

  “You’re scared of outside the farm. Of leaving the farm, so you lash out at anything that is leaving. Me, because I’m trying to go.”

  “I don’t need to leave. Dad doesn’t want me to leave. But if the farm sells . . .”

  “Admit that you’re afraid then,” she said.

  Ghost slipped Dylan’s head into its mouth. Dylan punched at the side of its jaws.

  “No!” Limpy cried and pushed upward with her fingers splayed over the snout of it. But it didn’t bite down, at least not that she could tell.

  “Admit it!” she screamed and there came a choked response. “Admit that you’re afraid to leave the farm. Afraid that the big bad world will send you back here with your tail between your legs. That you’ll fail. Admit that you’re scared that you’ll fail!”

  “Okay, okay, okay!” Dylan’s cry was muffled. “So I’m afraid of leaving the farm. Of not making it on my own. I hate you for being so sure you want to leave. I punch people who think I should leave, people like you, like Arnie—he wants to get out of the whole town too, you know?”

  A tiny fuzzy ball of Ghost hung from the planks.

  She shook her head. She hadn’t known. To have something in common with the bully felt strange. Dylan sobbed, quaking and hunched.

  “Dylan,” she whispered, placing her hand on his shoulder so that he opened his eyes and straightened. “You did it, it’s gonna be all right.” She pointed to the small, trembling chupacabra.

  It chupped in fear as it dangled.

  “It’s okay,” Dylan said, holding out his open hands. “I’ll catch you.”

  He did, placing Ghost with the others. A grin spread on his face and Dylan’s shoulders, which had always been tight, relaxed.

  “Dad,” Limpy called. “It’s your turn.”

  As if summoned by her shout, the fan of the great Tufts’ mouth spread across the entire square above. Teeth hung like stalactites. Ribbed tusks curled. Why, after hearing each of them conquer their fears, was her father’s fear stronger than ever?

  Seeing her father, she realized that they were in trouble. He wasn’t just scared. Beneath his moustache his lips stretched back in a rictus. His face had gone chalk white.

  He was terrified.

  Chapter 33

  “Limphetta,” her father croaked. He entered on his hands and knees, swung his legs into the freezer and sat on its edge.

  “You’ve heard everything,” she said. For the first time she felt as though she held the position of authority. Like she was somehow passing judgement on her father. “What is it that you fear?”

  “You mean more than heights and darkness. More than snakes and bee stings and spiders or drowning or burning? More than you biking to school every day and braving the roads?” He chuckled a little crazily, but she just nodded—never having considered he might be so full of fear. “My fear—is that thing?” He took in the tiny chupacabra at their feet and then the massive creature that caused the planks above their heads to bow with its weight.

  “The only monster is in your heart, Dad. That’s where you need to fight it. What are you afraid of? What’s rotting inside of you?”

  His forehead wrinkled.

  “Is it Mom’s dying? Is it dying yourself?” she asked. A touch of her mother’s ashes still dusted his hair. He looked older than she’d ever recalled, and she wondered if he’d thought about his own death.

  He shook his head. “Nah, to me death is as exciting as it is scary—it’s not my fear. I don’t think. Not my big one.”

  How could everyone not know what they were afraid of? For Limpy it had been so simple: she’d feared wasting her life on the farm
, never silencing a mother she’d never known, never feeling she was good enough. Maybe part of her was frightened about what lay outside the farm, too. But that fear was small like Chup, who slept at her feet. Her father, however, whose fears were the strongest as measured by the size of Tufts, he had no idea. And she couldn’t help him. He had to help himself.

  Which was why, she realized, Mr. José couldn’t tell them how to defeat the chupacabra. He hadn’t known their fears.

  “Why didn’t you want me to go to arts school?”

  “I need you on the farm, Limp,” he said, but his voice was hesitant.

  “We’re here for you. Dylan, Connor, me . . .”

  “For now you are,” he said.

  There was silence. Too much silence. She heard what her father said, knew she had his secret fear within her grasp, but the background noise had fled. The quiet raised the hair on her neck. She shone the light back up and it fell on a dark hole in the ceiling.

  “The chupacabra is gone,” she said.

  “It worked?” her father asked. “I did it?”

  There came a wrenching of metal and the entire barn groaned and shook. “It’s going, Pops. It’s leaving the farm.”

  Mr. José entered through the burlap then and showed them his chupacabra. Still, he gripped it, but his arms shook with the effort.

  “You must hurry,” he said.

  “It’s growing,” Limpy said. “Mr. José, is this your fear? That the chupacabra will escape?”

  Mr. José sighed. “Perhaps. I come from Puerto Rico. A tiny village that faced los chupacabra. I ran rather than face mine. I left it. Later, I realized my shame and tracked it. But is its escape my fear? Maybe . . .”

  Her father placed his hands on the rung of the ladder.

  “Dad,” Limpy said, and he paused. “I’ll come back, you know? If I leave, I won’t be gone forever, not like Mom.”

  He nodded and started to climb. Dylan and Connor followed after.

  “Go,” Mr. José said to Limpy. “I will guard the freezer.” His fingers slipped a little and the chupacabra’s jaws fanned.

  “I’ll help my dad,” Emmanuel said, and the older man smiled.