Broken Monsters

by Lauren Beukes

  ‘Great! Cut there,’ Jen says. ‘We’ll edit in footage of the angels later. Forlorn, Jonno?’

  ‘Oh come on! Give me something, sometimes.’ He shouts back at the scene behind him, where their would-be mugger is curled up on his haunches with his arms wrapped over his head. ‘Hey, Miss Ivy! You can stop beating Simon now.’

  Everyone wants to be in the movies. Everyone wants their fame time. He holds the camera out the window as they drive to film cut-aways of Detroit scenery, his scarf pulled up over his nose to protect him from the icy blast of wind.

  ‘Did you bring food?’ Jen says from the driver’s seat, and he digs in the bag at his feet and hands her the sandwiches he made this morning.

  ‘I can’t eat this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘White bread and jelly? Are you trying to kill me?’ She’s smiling, but there’s also a baffled woundedness there. A look that says ‘I thought you were paying attention’.

  ‘Shit, sorry, baby. I wasn’t thinking.’ But how’s he supposed to remember all this crap? Maybe that’s an article right there: ‘10 Things You Should Know About Dating A Type One Diabetic’. Like how going out to dinner is a joyless exercise because food is something to be managed not savoured, or how your sex goddess’s insatiable libido might suddenly crash along with her blood sugar.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she says, breezily. ‘We can get something en route.’

  Scott, the photographer, is waiting in his car, the windows fogged up. He climbs out, lanky and bearded, his beanie pulled down low on his forehead. ‘I was just about to bail on you guys.’

  ‘Sorry, babe! We had to stop to grab a bite.’ Jen kisses him on the cheek, but Jonno can’t tell if they have a vibe or not. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t keep you long. If you can tell us what’s going on, introduce yourself, and then you and Jonno are going to walk into the building together, okay?’

  ‘All right,’ he says. ‘Okay, I’m Scott, I’m a sculptor and photographer, and I work a lot in these abandoned buildings.’

  ‘Tell us what you found yesterday,’ Jonno interrupts.

  ‘I’ve been doing some follow-up work, revisiting places I’ve photographed before to see how they’ve changed. I came back here and …’

  ‘Cut,’ Jen says. ‘Now you’re going to walk us inside.’

  Scott rubs at his beard. ‘I have to say, I prefer being on the other side of the camera.’

  ‘I feel you, buddy,’ Jonno says. ‘But you’re doing great.’

  ‘This way.’ Scott leads them into the broken-down strip club, propping open the door with a piece of concrete.

  ‘I’m filming,’ Jen says, shining a hand-held light on the two men. ‘You can carry on talking if you want.’

  ‘You were saying, you came here a couple of days ago?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Can you say that as a sentence?’

  ‘I came back here on Tuesday, as part of a follow-up series I’m doing, and I found this graffiti. I’ve been noticing it a lot over the last few days, all around town.’

  ‘And reveal!’ Jen says.

  She swings the light onto the wall as Scott and Jonno step to either side. There is a chalk door drawn on the wall.

  ‘What we’re looking at is a crude rectangle drawn in chalk on the wall. Do you have a name for them?’

  ‘I call them ghost doors. I think they’re kind of memorials to where people have died, or something has happened. You can feel it, can’t you? There’s a particular energy here. A lot of the great earth-works of Detroit – the burial grounds of the ancient indigenous people – were destroyed in the process of industrialization. And now, many of those factories have been abandoned or demolished as well. Like the Solvay Process plant, which was built on the site of the Great Mound of the Rouge, the largest mound in Detroit, and now it’s just this flat patch of dirt – a toxic brownfield. It’s wild: ghosts of the industries on top of ghosts of the natives – we’ve got thousands of years of ghosts here. Some people have ghost towns, we have a whole ghost city.’

  ‘Cut. That was amazing, Scott. Thank you.’

  ‘It was fun.’ He runs his hand over the chalk door. ‘They do creep me out, though, the way they’ve just sprung up overnight. I heard there’s one down by the tunnel where that kid was killed, but the cops have got someone stationed down there. I couldn’t get near it. This going up on YouTube? Let me know when it’s up.’ He raises his camera and snaps off a photograph of them, which annoys Jonno – it’s like he has to have the last word.

  ‘They with you?’ Scott says, pointing at a raggedy couple, holding a candle, frozen in the doorway.

  ‘Perdón, we’re sorry, we’re sorry,’ the scruffy little man says, flapping his hands as they both start backing away.

  ‘No, wait!’ Jen darts after them. ‘Hi, can we talk to you? We’re not the police, don’t worry. We’re making a movie.’

  ‘El video,’ Jonno tries a bastard attempt at Spanish, miming winding a camera reel – as if that means anything any more.

  ‘About the graffiti,’ Jen says. ‘Is that why you’re here? For the door?’

  The woman tugs at the man’s arm. ‘Papi, I don’t think this is a good idea.’

  ‘Please. Five minutes,’ Jen implores.

  ‘Can you tell us your name on camera and why you’re here today?’ Jonno says to the man with all the wear of the streets engraved on his face.

  ‘My name is Ramón,’ the man says. ‘This is my girlfriend, Diyana.’

  Jen quickly pans the camera to take in the shy woman with the plaited hair, who is hanging back.

  ‘We live on the street, and when it gets too cold we go to the shelter or a friend’s house. I used to be a motor mechanic. I could fix up anything. Ford. General Motors. Chevrolet. Pontiac. But these new fancy cars. Built by robots, you need to be a robot to fix ’em.’

  ‘What’s that you have with you?’ Jonno interrupts.

  ‘It’s a blessing candle from the botanica.’

  ‘And what are you going to do with it?’ Jesus, Jonno thinks, like pulling teeth.

  ‘We brought it to the door. For a prayer for luck and good fortune.’

  ‘What are the doors?’

  ‘You get here at the right time and place, when that door opens? That door will take you anywhere you want.’

  His ladyfriend pipes up, ‘But maybe you don’t want to go where that door takes you. You only think you do,’ but she shrinks when Jen turns the camera on her.

  ‘I’ve heard some people call them ghost doors.’

  ‘I don’t know. You call them what you like.’

  ‘What do you have to do to open them?’

  ‘I hear different things. You have to be here at midnight, full moon.’

  ‘Have you tried it?’

  ‘No, brother. I don’t want to mess with that stuff.’ Ramón crosses himself.

  ‘Then why bring the candle?’

  ‘Sometimes you got to appease the spirits. Keep them happy.’

  ‘Can we film you lighting it? Maybe the two of you together?’

  ‘All right,’ he nods, as if this is reasonable. He bends down in his bright red keds and flicks a plastic lighter over the candle in front of the chalk outline.

  ‘Just stay there for one more moment. Can you close your eyes, as if you’re praying?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘And don’t talk. Don’t even nod your head. Just stay there. Five more seconds. Three, two, one. Thank you.’

  Ramón straightens up, hands on his knees. ‘Was that good?’

  ‘It was beautiful. Really touching. It’s great to show the more spiritual side of the city,’ Jonno says. ‘Now, if we can just get one of you and Diana holding hands and sort of holding up the candle together. No, don’t smile. Look serious. That’s it. Perfect.’

  He gives them ten dollars each.

  Catfish on the Menu

  ‘It’s not too late,’ Layla says, clutching the raft of flyers they
printed out at her house. ‘We could just hand over his IP address and email to Anonymous or whoever. Pedobear. Bullyville. Catch A Predator. There are people who deal with this stuff.’

  ‘Like the cops?’

  ‘My mom would kill me.’ But it’s not just her mother she’s worried about. Her dad would freak. Because what they are doing is the very antithesis of ‘be reasonable’.

  ‘Stop whining. It’s going to be epic. We’re in a public place. We’ve got masks. We’re going to put it on YouTube, for real, and the guy is a twisted fuck who totally has it coming.’

  ‘I feel sick.’

  ‘That’s the nausea of justice about to be served.’

  ‘Feels like just plain nausea to me.’

  Cas smiles at a woman stepping out of the tanning salon. ‘Excuse me, ma’am?’ The sun-beds on the poster on the door look like torture cabinets to Layla, the ones with all the spikes. She thinks about all the UV rays stabbing into you, the black bloom of melanomas spreading under your skin.

  Cas gestures for one of the flyers and sticks it in the woman’s face. ‘We’ve lost our VelvetBoy. Have you seen him?’

  ‘Is that your cat?’ The woman takes the flyer and peers at it.

  ‘Well, he likes pussy. But only if it’s underage.’

  She recoils and shoves the flyer back at them. ‘That’s repulsive.’

  ‘That’s just how we feel, ma’am,’ Cas calls after her, cheerfully.

  Lost: One Pedophcle

  Name: VelvetBoy aka Phil

  Likes: Video Games, Pre-Teen Chat,

  Asking Little Girls For Naughty Photos.

  They’d argued about the wording and whether to include his full name and the photograph they’d found on his Facebook profile, which was under the same email address. How dumb can you get? Layla almost feels sorry for him. It’s like he’s living in the past, before the NSA and PRISM and flying killer robots in the sky. He’s the kind of guy who would fall for an email scam.

  They cased the joint two days ago to establish the best positioning for ‘Operation Pants Pulldown’. Which is not what they’re actually planning to do, Cas has promised. It’s metaphorical. And because ‘Operation Exposure’ sounded like some kind of Arctic survival documentary.

  She shoves Layla into the path of an older woman in a belted purple trenchcoat, head down against the chill.

  ‘Have you seen our—’ Layla starts, but she can’t bring herself to finish the sentence. She jabs the flyer out, mutely. The lady gives her an apologetic smile.

  ‘Oh no thank you, honey, I’m a Lutheran.’

  He said he lived in Bloomington. He said he was going to be in town on business for a few days, and hey, maybe they could meet. That would be fun. He could buy SusieLee a milkshake. He could pick her up. Luckily, they managed to talk him out of that. He’s supposed to meet them, well, her – SusieLee – at the table under the painting of the blue lady at the pancake place.

  >SusieLee2003: U cant miss it.

  >VelvetBoy: What if that space is tkaen?

  >SusieLee2003: U’ll c me. LOL!

  Layla talked Cas out of using his full name.

  ‘I want him to be ruined.’

  ‘There are libel laws, dumb-ass.’

  ‘Excuse me! Sir!’ Cas skips over to a man taking out the trash. ‘Sir? Have you seen our pedophile?’

  It’s the proximity. The closer they get, the more it feels like someone filled her up with burning lead, but it’s having the opposite effect on Cas. She is giddy.

  Philip Lowe. 43 years old. Electrical contractor. 131 friends.

  ‘Not for lo-oong,’ Cas had sing-songed, right-clicking his profile photograph to save-as. It showed him grinning widely into the camera, lakeside somewhere with water and trees behind him, holding a hamburger like a trophy, and giving a big thumbs-up. Layla spent ages studying it, searching for some sign in his face: a villainous glint in his eyes, receding hair, a criminal brow. But he looked normal, sweet, maybe a bit goofy. Nice. He had a small splat of mustard on his shirt. Inhuman monsters who prey on little children shouldn’t be allowed to spill mustard.

  ‘What if it’s just a game?’ Layla pushed Cas. ‘This stupid thing he does online.’

  ‘Intention is nine-tenths of the law.’

  ‘Possession.’

  ‘Probably that too. X-rated materials of minors on his hard drive. We should raid his house. Do you think we could get him to bring his computer with?’

  They’ve got SusieLee’s MChat account set up on both their phones now, so that Layla can reply to him. He messages her several times a day. It’s exhausting. She wanted to send him a private message this morning to say ‘Don’t come. It’s off. And by the way fuck you.’ But she knew Cas would see it.

  Layla would have preferred to set some sort of trap. The kind you can fall into, with spikes at the bottom. She still can’t believe they’re doing this. Maybe she could fake an injury. Twist her ankle. That wouldn’t be enough for Cas. Maybe if she stepped in front of a car pulling away from the curb and let it hit her – she’d choose a compact obviously. They’d have to go to hospital. He’d wait around and finally realize that he’d been had, and that would be the end of it.

  Her phone buzzes in her pocket. Cas is humming to herself as she sticks pages under car windscreen wipers like club flyers. ‘Dah-dah-dah. Gonna be a good, good day.’

  Layla checks the message surreptitiously, hoping he’s got cold feet.

  >VelvetBoy: I’m here! Are tyou still conging?

  The typos give him away. Intention doesn’t count for shit, but action does. He’s waiting in a coffee shop for a little girl he believes is lying to her mom about going to her cousin to play. He is excited about it. He’s ready to take her away in his car. She still feels sick about the whole thing, but now she is angry too. Outrage is a coat she can wrap herself in. She types back.

  >SusieLee2003: Conga! I <3 conga

  There is a long wait. The dot-dot-dots that mean he’s writing a reply. Deleting it. Starting again.

  >VelvetBoy: What does that mean? LOL?

  >SusieLee2003: Im teasing! Means on my way! Order me a strawberry pls? :)

  ‘Was that him?’ Cas says. ‘It’s still on, right?’

  ‘It’s fucking on.’

  ‘Good.’ But she says it without her earlier conviction.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Peachy. Let’s just get on with it.’

  ‘Mask.’ Layla hands her one of the plastic cat faces. She pushes her own back on her head.

  They stop outside the diner. They've picked a table visible from the street through the window.

  ‘I can’t look. Is he there?’ Cas says. Her skin has turned bright pink, making her freckles fade out. Sweat is beading her nose.

  ‘He’s hiding behind his menu.’

  ‘Maybe this is a bad idea. What if he turns aggro?’

  What if he does? What if he has a gun? Or a knife? Layla has seen photographs of every variety of wound in the forensics manual her parents kept trying to hide – like she couldn’t find more gruesome photos online. But she knows it’s not like in the movies. One bullet can kill you. A lucky stab with a screwdriver can cripple you for life. Falling off your bicycle can cause brain damage. You don’t want to get in a fight if you can help it.

  But then the waitress puts a frothy pink milkshake down in front of him, and he gives her a curt little nod, just the top of his head showing above the menu – and that seals the deal.

  ‘No turning back.’ She takes Cas’s hand and tugs her inside.

  The doorbell tinkles, incredibly loud. Everything seems loud. The clatter of plates in the kitchen. The hum of the heating. He glances up sharply from the menu and she can see him look them over and dismiss them, too old. He ducks down behind the menu again.

  ‘Anywhere you can find a place, sweeties,’ the waitress calls out to them. ‘Be with you in a sec.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Layla says. ‘But I don’t think we’re g
oing to eat.’ She pulls the mask down and starts for his table, but Cas pulls her up short.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Layla hisses.

  ‘I can’t.’ Cas looks like she is about to burst into tears. Her mask is still perched on top of her hair, like the world’s stupidest hat. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her shoulders start shaking.

  Layla is cold with certainty. She feels like another person. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ she projects, striding across the diner, so that everyone looks up. She plucks the menu out of his hands and tosses it aside. It makes a very particular plastic filip as it hits the floor. Which is funny, because that’s his name. She has to bite back a bark of laughter.

  He smiles up at her, baffled. ‘What’s up with the mask? This a hold-up?’ He raises his hands: ‘Don’t shoot.’ He still looks nice, and that makes her even madder. How dare he have smile lines?

  ‘I thought we’d need them. But we don’t,’ Layla says. She peels off the cat face and drops it on the table. It smiles up at them benevolently. ‘Because unlike you, Phil, we don’t have anything to hide.’

  His brow furrows. ‘Do I know you?’

  She holds up the flyer at arm’s length, right in his face, and recites the lines, loud and clear. ‘Excuse me. We’ve lost our pedophile. His name is VelvetBoy. Have you seen him?’

  ‘Fuck,’ his face flushes different colors, like a cartoon. Then he bursts up from the table. For a moment she thinks he’s going to stab her, but he pushes her instead. The milkshake goes flying, glass exploding across the floor. She falls backwards and puts the heel of her hand down onto a shard.

  ‘Ow, fuck!’ She looks for Cas, but there’s no sign of her friend. The entranceway is empty. There’s no-one to stop Phil as he bangs open the door, setting the doorbell jangling again, leaving a slim fold of leather on the plastic seat.

  ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ The waitress pulls her up. ‘You’re bleeding,’ she says, as if this is the worst crime in the world.