Broken Monsters

by Lauren Beukes

  ‘In the car.’

  ‘Get it, please.’

  ‘Why should I? How can I trust you? You’ve been lying to me this whole time.’

  ‘Because you know the consequences,’ Layla says. This sounds bad-ass. She thinks about what it looks like, two girls in cat masks in a playground facing off against a lanky white guy in a Lions beanie. Probably pretty damn cool. It has the displaced feeling of a movie. She’s watching it happen. ‘Don’t fuck with me,’ she says, because it seems like the sort of thing she should say.

  ‘Bitches.’

  ‘Go on,’ Cas goads.

  ‘I don’t have it.’

  ‘What?’ Layla is stunned.

  ‘Where’m I s’posed to get ten gees?’

  ‘You said you would.’

  ‘Look at me. Look at my car. I pull in two grand a month. My rent is seven hundred dollars. I spend four hundred dollars on groceries. I got debts. I got a real sick father. He’s got Parkinson’s. It makes your whole body claw up like a dead crab. He sits in a wheelchair all day. His insurance wouldn’t pay for a colostomy. So he shits himself and I have to get him out of the wheelchair and change his diapers. My father.’

  ‘You got enough money to buy online vouchers for little girls,’ Cas says.

  ‘It’s a fantasy. I never acted on it. I’m lonely. You don’t have fantasies?’

  ‘You asked for photos!’ Layla objects. ‘You wanted her to send you videos. You wanted to meet her!’

  ‘Who’s her? There’s no her. SusieLee doesn’t exist. There’s you. You two playing some crazy headgame. Leading on innocent people. I didn’t want to meet. You did. I thought …’

  ‘What? You thought what?’

  ‘I don’t know! I thought maybe you were lying. That you were older. You seemed older. But not so old that you were already screwed-up and bitter, like the women I’ve dated.’

  ‘You’re pathetic.’

  His face tightens. ‘You want your money, girly? How about I pay you and your fat friend twenty bucks to suck my dick.’

  Cas loses it. ‘You pig! You’re a disgusting pervert. You’re just like them.’ She barges into Layla with her shoulder. The hand holding the gun comes out of her pocket and Cas wrenches it away from her.

  ‘No, Cas!’ Layla shouts.

  ‘Fucking liar. Fucking pervert!’ She screams. She shoves the revolver into Phil’s crotch. He yelps, a high-pitched sound, backing up against the car.

  ‘Where’s the money, pervert?’

  ‘I don’t have it! I told you.’

  ‘Cas, stop it,’ Layla begs.

  ‘Of course you don’t. Because you’re a loser. You want a blow job? How about I blow off your fucking balls? How does that sound, Phil? Hope you got a spare pair of your daddy’s diapers in the car. You’re going to need them, motherfucker.’ Tears are streaming down her face.

  ‘I’m sorry! It was a joke.’

  ‘Stop it!’ Layla grabs Cas’s arm, but she’s stronger and she’s not letting go.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what they said. A joke. I’m so sick of you all!’ Cas screams into his face. ‘You’re all the same.’

  ‘I’ll get you the money!’ Phil shrieks, cringing away.

  ‘He’s not them, Cas!’

  ‘Please! I’ll get a loan!’ he squeals. ‘Don’t shoot me.’

  ‘He’s not the same. He’s not the guys who did this to you.’ Layla gets hold of Cas’s thumb and wrenches it down, forcing her hand to twist sideways, her whole body following.

  The gun goes off, louder than Layla could have imagined.

  They all jump and Phil screams. It’s muted, like it’s coming through a tin-can telephone on a string. For a moment the whole world turns to pearlescent glass, an art-deco ashtray. And then it snaps back to normal.

  Her head is ringing. Cas is crouched down, her hands over her ears, shoulders jerking. Phil is screaming and gasping and screaming, his eyes scrunched shut, palms flat against the car.

  Layla looks down at the gun in her hand. She raises it and taps Phil on the forehead with the butt. ‘Hey, dummy. It didn’t hit you.’

  He opens his eyes and flinches, his eyes darting to the gun. She’s never had someone be afraid of her before.

  ‘You’re okay, Phil.’ Her own voice sounds dulled.

  ‘Oh sweet Jesus. God in heaven. Thank you, God.’

  ‘Get in your car, Phil. Drive away. Don’t come back. Don’t ever try this shit again. We’ll be watching you. Next time, I’ll let her shoot you.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I will. I mean, I won’t. Whatever you want.’

  ‘Get in the car.’

  He scrambles round to the driver’s side, and drops his keys in the street. He fumbles around for them, his breath coming in shallow grunts. He peers under the car, reaching in, then peeks over the hood to see what she’s doing. ‘I can’t,’ he implores.

  ‘Take your time. I’m not going to shoot you. See, I’m putting the gun away.’

  He nods, his eyes wet, and lies down in the icy sludge, reaching under the car.

  Layla reaches into her pocket for a Sharpie. She writes ‘SusieLee’ in giant letters across his back windscreen. From this angle, the red leather in the back of the car looks almost vaginal – warm and fleshy. She imagines him being swallowed by his car. She’s losing her mind.

  ‘What’s that?’ he says, standing up, keys in hand. His hands are shaking. But then so are hers.

  ‘In case you forget. If you even think of following us, if you try to find us, I’ll let her shoot you in the balls. We know where you live. C’mon, Cas.’ She pulls her sobbing friend to her feet and walks away, fast, across the street to the gas station and the neon safety of the gas pumps and the aisles filled with produce. She doesn’t look back.

  The Footage

  It’s Jen’s idea to release the footage with different cuts. Twenty-eight minutes for the aficionados, twelve minutes for the curious new converts, three minutes for the casual YouTuber, ten-and thirty-second chunks for the news channels, always with Jonno in frame or their captions over the images. Brand recognition. He can’t wait to have a professional cameraman, a real producer, an editor.

  Jonno looks straight-to-camera, his delivery super-serious. ‘This is what the City of Detroit doesn’t want you to see.’ He pauses for emphasis, grim. ‘I can’t blame them. The images we’re about to show you are graphic and disturbing.’ Guaranteeing that no-one is going to click away. But they let them wait.

  Cue photograph of Daveyton grinning goofily in an oversized football helmet. Zoom out to reveal it’s one of many photographs pinned up among flowers and balloons and cards and stuffed toys at the bus stop where he was killed. The camera lingers on a piece of cardboard that reads, ‘We miss you Davey,’ in childish script, with handprints from his classmates.

  ‘Daveyton Lafonte. Eleven years old. When he was six, he survived being shot in a gang fight. But death came back to claim him. He was abducted from this bus stop on his way home from school.’

  A shaky driving shot of the tunnel at night. Jen reassured him that it would make it look more real.

  ‘Someone killed him and left his body here, like trash.’

  Cue the crime-scene photographs, and a photo click sound effect, which Jonno thinks is cheesy as hell, but every click gets them closer to the scene. The cop cars blocking off the road, the graffiti on the tunnel wall, the shape of a child curled up on his side, indistinct. ‘The police reported that the body was found with animal remains. Whatever that means. Roadkill? A dead cat found in the vicinity?’

  Cue panning shot of a newspaper headline that says ‘animal remains’.

  ‘We didn’t know what that meant. We didn’t know the truth of how his body had been desecrated. Until these disturbing photographs were leaked by someone close to the investigation.’ He uses all the right lingo that suggests concerned citizens, government cover-ups, the people’s right to know.

  Cut back to a close-up of Daveyton’s face, eyes closed, s
erene. Slow zoom out to reveal his naked chest. Zoom out further to reveal the seam of fur creeping over his stomach, the length of the deer haunches. Full reveal: lingering on the unspeakable.

  He speaks it anyway: ‘Daveyton was killed by a sick and twisted murderer. But merely killing a little boy wasn’t enough for the Detroit Monster. No. He cut Daveyton Lafonte in half, and attached him to a fawn.

  ‘The rest of Daveyton’s remains were discovered at the now infamous Dream House party, hidden among the art installations.’

  Cut to the footage, re-cut so it looks more dramatic. They’ve included some of the weirder art, but they’ve also re-contextualized the girl screaming in delight on the dance floor, among the images of people leaving the party. Quick cuts, tense close-ups, like the scene in Jaws when everyone is fleeing the beach.

  ‘The police don’t want you to know how bad this is. How deep it goes.’

  Cut to the Tudor exterior of Miskwabic Pottery. A photograph of a group of students throwing pots on the wheels. The photograph turns to monochrome on everyone except for a cheerful middle-aged lady in an orange apron, who is holding up her hands to demonstrate the curve of a bowl.

  ‘Pottery teacher, Betty Spinks, was covered in clay and baked to ash in the Miskwabic kiln, after the killer cut off her feet.’

  Photographs of the kiln, looking creepy as hell, with singed bricks and a gaping interior. Generic ones he found online, because they wouldn’t let them in to film, and his source wasn’t able to get at those particular photographs.

  ‘This is a twisted killer who is on the loose in Detroit right now … And the police don’t want you to know about it.’

  Shaky footage from the party. Detective Versado yelling at him. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Hand over that phone.’

  ‘Why are they trying to cover it up? Why don’t they want us to know what’s happening in our own city? I’m Jonno Haim and I’ll keep you up to date on the Detroit Monster as events unfold.’

  SUBREDDIT / Detroit Monster

  If you’re new here, please read the FAQ before posting. Please post in the appropriate sub-threads and check to see if there isn’t an existing conversation topic before you post. Please note that these theories and discussions are for entertainment purposes only and are not intended to compete with or undermine proper judicial processes.*

  (*Yeah, yeah, we’re putting this here to keep the nanny brigade off our backs, but seriously, you guys, we don’t want another Boston Bomber or Sandy Hook situation. No false accusations, no finger-pointing, no DOXing without good cause.)

  > Start here: Welcome newbies and FAQ

  > New Video! Holy shit!

  > Jonno Haim

  > Who is this guy?

  > 15 minutes of fame.

  > Ruh-roh! Anyone think he’s the killer?

  > Everything we know about the victims:

  > Daveyton Lafonte

  > Betty Spinks

  > The crime scenes

  > Bus stop: Daveyton Part 1

  > Miskwabic Pottery: Betty Spinks

  > Dream House party: Daveyton Part 2

  > Dream House on social media

  > Links to videos, pictures

  > Suspicious status updates

  > Interesting tweets

  > Dream House attendees

  > Similar cases

  > The Craigslist Ripper (New York)

  > Amputated feet washing up on Salish Shore (British Columbia)

  > Cattle Mutilations (Montana)

  > Alien corpse is really a mummified baboon (Nature’s Valley, South Africa)

  > Other serial killers who mutilated their victims:

  > Edward Theodore Gein

  > Richard Trenton Chase

  > Joachim Dressler

  > Robin Gecht

  > Mary Bell

  > Charles Albright

  > Other serial killers who left signs:

  > Roger Kibbe

  > Harvey Murray Glatman

  > John Allen Muhammad & Lee Boyd Malvo

  > Richard Ramirez

  > Animal theories

  > Hate crime theories

  > Rogue taxidermy links

  > Mythology: animal hybrids

  > Daveyton: Satyrs

  > Pan

  > Puck

  > Dionysus

  > Pan’s Labyrinth

  > Disney’s Fantasia

  > Betty

  > Gorgons/Medusa

  > Hydra

  > Kali

  > Kraken

  > Sphinx

  > Ursula the sea-witch

  > Graffiti

  > Doors

  > Fake doors

  > Quit doing fake doors!

  > Better names for ‘The Detroit Monster’

  > Yo Momma

  > The Mangler

  > Monstermaker

  > The Mythmaker

  > The Killer Mythtake

  > The Killer Milkshake

  > My milkshake brings all the serial killers to the yard

  > ZOMG. STFU.

  Breakdown

  This should be the end of the story. Cops with guns and flak jackets, squad cars surrounding the house, the blue and red lights strobing the street.

  They have checked the satellite photos and the street view, calculating the entrances and exits, every possible escape route out of the neighborhood. They have them all covered. Snipers have guns trained on the windows. Two police helicopters are circling overhead along with three news choppers, who got wind of something, hovering close by.

  The excitable curator, Patrick Thorpe, is with them, standing back out of harm’s way, briefing the entry teams. He’s wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet even though he’s not going anywhere near the scene. They wouldn’t have brought him, but they needed to move fast, and he was the only person who could brief them on the interior of the house. They need all the intel they can get, and he’s already told them that Broom is a hoarder, that the inside is an obstacle course of newspaper stacks and heavy old furniture.

  One of the news crews has a drone. Gabi’s commandeered it to get a look in the windows upstairs, the quadrocopter buzzing round the house with its camera, but the technology is stymied by an older one: curtains.

  Captain Miranda is standing out front with the megaphone, issuing the scripted demands. Come out, come out, wherever you are, Gabi thinks. Please make it easy. They’re all wired into the same circuitboard of tension.

  There’s no response. The front door, which has a dozen guns trained on it, does not crack open so that Broom can release Officer Jones and come out slowly, his hands on his head, as instructed. But he also doesn’t burst out of the house with a semi-automatic blazing. And that’s something. But her heart is a wild animal in her chest. All she can think about is Marcus Jones and how she’s let him down.

  ‘Going in,’ Miranda confirms. Boyd stays with the team in front. Gabi goes through to the yard, because the back door will yield more easily, which means she can get in faster. The grass is dead, frosted with concrete dust and yellow patches marking where things used to stand. The curator said it was full of statues. She wonders where the hell they are now, how many of them are human. What are they even dealing with?

  Gabi takes her place behind the huge officer with the battering ram. The worst job. The most vulnerable. No cop wants to be in a situation where you can’t get your hands on your gun.

  The instruction comes through clear on the radio and simultaneously, front and back, the teams swing the battering rams into the heavy doors. The wood resists the siege. It’s old and sturdy, from the days when they built houses to last. But even history has to yield to force, especially when you know the weak points: the lock, the hinges. The wood splinters. Another officer wedges a crowbar under the lock and pops it out.

  They drop the ram, draw their guns and swoop in, avenging angels. For Daveyton Lafonte and Betty Spinks and Sparkles and for themselves, so they never have to get that call about someone they love.r />
  The kitchen to the right, the refrigerator yawning open, the living room to the left, heavy curtains pulled shut. Stairs leading up to the second floor.

  The place stinks of damp and old paper. Sweaty feet in an old library. And blood. Splattered over the kitchen. In the basement, over a work table. A slaughterhouse. The carpets are discolored, like the yard, marked by things that have stood here long enough to leave their ghosts. Stains creep up the walls, damp and black mold. There are rat droppings. Silverfish and cockroaches scatter into the darkest corners. And hundreds of chalk doorways drawn everywhere, overlapping each other.