Thoroughly Modern Monsters

by Jennifer Rainey

  Dennis groaned throatily and turned back to the toilet.

  “I know this is going to sound unbelievable to you, but you’re hungry. And the sooner we get to Lansing, the sooner you can get something to eat,” Nadia said.

  “Lansing?!” he cried. “I need a hospital.”

  “No, you need blood.”

  Dennis vomited again.

  “Blood?” he managed eventually. Nadia sucked on her lower lip and still looked to the mirror. It had a gold tone to it that made the room look even more yellow. It was always ugly at the beginning. She told Dennis that, and he gaped. “Ugly? I… Blood? Did you turn…? Are you…? Oh God.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You!” He reached for his throat and felt the bandage before opening his mouth wide. Iggy was right; his teeth were out, somewhat pathetic for a man of his size, but you can’t win them all. “You turned me into a vampire.”

  Nadia nodded slowly. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake.”

  “What the hell?” Dennis cried and threw his back against the wall. “How do you just accidentally turn someone into a vampire? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  Nadia recoiled and tied her fingers together. She now looked to the mirror on the far wall of the bedroom, the one with the spider web cracks. She watched herself closely. “I should’ve taken my medication. I’ve been on Sanguinex for the last four years. But I stopped.”

  “Why?” Dennis croaked.

  “I don’t know why I stopped. I just did. But it was a mistake. I promise. I didn’t… I didn’t initially mean to do this to you.” She looked to him. “Would you like some toilet paper for your mouth or…?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  “You just stopped taking your meds? You don’t fucking do that. You’re on meds for a reason,” Dennis muttered.

  “Maybe.” Nadia returned her gaze to the mirror. It dawned on her at once, a wonderful realization. She liked the way she looked. For once in her life, she looked a lovely mess, a truly fantastic mess.

  She concealed a smile and continued, “So, no sunlight, no solid food. You’ll have to get some Sanguinex if you want to live among humans, but Duncan will have some actual blood for you in Lansing. We should probably go.”

  Dennis laughed sickly and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m not going to Lansing. I’m going home.” He got up, nearly tripped over his own feet, but steadied himself. “Where am I, by the way?”

  “23 North. The Val-U Inn.”

  “Great.” Dennis Crane leaned on the wall and groaned into one hand.

  “Do you want your sweater?”

  “No, I don’t want my goddamn sweater.”

  “Okay, good. It has a hole in it, anyway.”

  Dennis rounded on Nadia like a drunken man preparing to fight. “I’m a little more worried about the holes in my neck right now, thank you.”

  “They’ll heal in the next few hours,” Nadia said.

  “Oh, thank God,” he cried bitterly. “Thank God for that!” He turned his back to the wall and looked into the mirror, grabbing at his hair again, at his face. He clawed his cheeks. “What am I? I look like Edward Scissorhands.”

  “No, I think you’re missing something pretty vital to being Edward Scissorhan—”

  “I’m a fucking ghoul! I look like death, I look dead and I’ve got these teeth,” he sobbed tearlessly. Dennis Crane slid down the wall and curled around himself, groaning and gasping. He rocked back and forth, he pulled at his hair, and he looked to Nadia and mouthed, “Why?” The room flashed white with headlights. “Why? What did I do to you? Why?”

  Nadia frowned. “I was lonely,” she admitted.

  Dennis’s face twitched madly. “Lonely?”

  “It’s mighty lonely being an undead twenty-something. Men don’t really like undead women, I’ve found, not the real ones. They only like the ones in the movies,” Nadia explained.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Save me your sob story,” he grunted as he pushed himself to his feet. “I’m getting a cab. I’m getting a cab, and I’m… I’m going home and taking painkillers…”

  “They won’t work anymore. Sorry.”

  “… and then I’m going to the cops. I’ll see you in court, by the way.” He stumbled to the door and fiddled with the locks. They clattered and thudded. Somehow in his state, he managed to fling the door open before taking off, dragging his feet like a zombie after a night on the town.

  Nadia drew a deep breath and reached for her cell phone. She dialed the last number she had called.

  “Iggy? Let Duncan know we’re going to be a lot later than anticipated.”

  VI.

  The television had three channels, one of which had no sound. When Nadia was a kid, she and her sister would turn down the sound on the television and make up their own dialogue for shows. Nadia muttered half-amusing lines to herself as she sat on the motel bed and turned a romantic drama into a scene about a man who needed an emergency colonoscopy.

  Nadia almost called her sister back in Oregon to tell her what she was up to.

  But she knew Dennis would be coming back soon.

  “I don’t care about the condition of your rectum, I still love you,” Nadia muttered as a blonde with an irritating face spoke on screen. “I’ll always love you. Forever.”

  He would calm down. He would understand. He’d even come to enjoy it. There was no question of whether or not he’d enjoy her. The ruined sweater vest sat beside her on the bed now, and she ran her fingers over the material. It was still soft, but vaguely sticky. Nadia looked to the mirror and smiled. She looked the loveliest she had looked in years, she had to admit.

  Nadia knew Dennis was outside the door before he knocked, and she jumped up from the bed. She opened the door slowly with a half grin on her face, one that she hoped made him see how silly he had been.

  He cleared his throat. Vampirism really did suit him nicely. The dark circles around his eyes helped bring out their bright color, and his skin was like china. He shoved his hands in his pockets sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “It’s fine, Dennis,” Nadia said sweetly. “Come in.”

  “It wasn’t my place to behave like that, and the more I thought about it… God, I’m sorry. I was a jackass. I should never have treated you like that.” He wrapped his arms around her, and though he smelled less than lovely, she held him back.

  Nadia took his pallid hands in hers. His heart had stopped beating hours before. “Oh, Dennis, you silly goose. You’re not a jackass. It’s completely understandable, darling. You were scared. We all are at first.”

  It felt like it had been centuries since she sired another, though it had only been a few years. She had been separated from any of the others. But the look of warmth, of unconditional love in his eyes was one she could never forget. It had just taken a little longer to manifest than she would’ve liked. They all come around eventually.

  “You’re my sire, Nadia. I should’ve known better.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Dennis.”

  He kissed her softly on the cheek, but then sighed. “We should probably go to Lansing, though, before I starve to death.”

  “Agreed,” Nadia said. He smiled weakly, but oh, it was glorious, she thought.

  They left the motel hand-in-hand. On the way out, Nadia threw her Collingham’s nametag in the trash.

  The Gorgon and My Mother

  Present Day.

  The monster beneath my bed when I was a kid was a gorgon. I know that because I asked her.

  And of course I wasn’t afraid. Everyone knows gorgons just like cool dark places that are low to the ground. Naturally, beneath my cowgirl and pony-inspired bed was the perfect place. She was just chilling. Passing time. She was living out her life like the rest of us.

  I called her Barbie because I couldn’t pronounce her real name. There were many x’s, g’s and k’s, occasionally
all shoved together.

  She even liked ponies. She liked them raw with a side of clover flower, but it still meant we had a nice topic of conversation to fall back on when I couldn’t sleep. I asked her one rare night when she actually came out from under my bed and settled on my pink beanbag chair if she’d ever eat any cute little cartoon ponies like the ones on my bed sheets and pajamas and posters and book bag. She flicked her tail and answered no.

  “That’d be like a human going after the little crumbs in the bottom of a bag of chips,” she answered in her reedy voice. “It’s just not worth it.” She went on to list kinds of ponies I had never even heard of and what sorts of wine she would pair them with. I fell asleep to the sound of Barbie wondering aloud if she would pair a Shetland with a nice red wine or a White Zinfandel.

  In my mother’s opinion, which might as well have been documented fact, Barbie was a pest.

  On Christmas when I was ten, I asked my mother if Barbie could join us to open presents. Mom threw the God’s eye I made for my monster in the trash and answered, “It’s trouble enough having your grandfather here. Now take him his medicine.” I later retrieved my gift, and Barbie hung it from the bottom of the bedframe.

  I was happy with my monster even if Mom was not. She wasn’t a pet, as my mother called her. She was a friend.

  Many kids have that experience of going away to camp and then returning home to find their dog has mysteriously vanished. “Oh, sweetie, we took Fido to your Great-Aunt June’s house. He’ll have more room to run around there,” they say. And you know you don’t really have an Aunt June, so where the hell did Fido go?

  It doesn’t dawn on you until you’re older.

  I came home one day from school to see Barbie being dragged out of the house in a massive white bag. She was still, and a few of the snakes on her head sprouted out of the top of the bag like alfalfa.

  I now know my mother had an excuse ready. All that woman does is make up excuses for why other people can’t do the things they want. Barbie just left, Barbie went to Gorgon Daycare, Barbie decided to take that job as an astronaut.

  But I got home just five minutes too early.

  What she ended up saying was, “Well, Katie, Barbie was getting too big to keep.” Her mouth was a thin, red line after she said it, and she turned back to her pasta bake and her pineapple upside-down cake for the nursing home.

  Of course, this was long before all of the monster legislation. Mom would’ve gone to jail for that these days, but trust me, I know she feels the same way about my husband. She’d bash Ed’s head in and send him off in a bag in an instant if she knew she could.

  On Christmas when I was twenty, Ed wore the woolly sweater I’d made for him and prepared to meet my mother. I could smell dinner from outside the house the second we got out of the car. Ed wrung his hands, and I assured him that everything would be okay as we tip-toed around the patches of ice on the sidewalk.

  We never got to eat that dinner. Mom slammed the door in Ed’s face before he could even get out, “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Calloway.”

  We ate Japanese barbecue that Christmas and made our own holiday far away from my mother and her ham and green beans and her signature pineapple upside-down cake.

  Mother was ill the day of my wedding, but Dad said she sent her regards. Ed asked me if I was sad she didn’t make it, and I might’ve said yes, but in all honesty, I could’ve danced to Burbank and back when I heard she wasn’t coming.

  “Well, I don’t care what you say,” I told her over the phone while Ed was still working at the water plant one day. This was when I was pregnant with Edward Jr. “I’ve never cared what you’ve had to say. Our son is going to know about and be proud of his Minotaur heritage, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. He’s our child, not yours.”

  Eddie Jr. just celebrated his eighth birthday. It was dinosaur-themed. My mother didn’t come. I haven’t heard from her since that phone call.

  Carnival

  Present Day.

  The DeLuis Brothers’ Family Carnival did not travel to the coasts. This was simply the way it was.

  George DeLuis, who tended to everything stodgy and business-related would not allow it. “They can offer me all the money in the world at Myrtle Beach! I’m not going!”

  Francis DeLuis, the ringmaster, was always too “preoccupied,” one might say, to question it.

  The traveling carnival’s favorite places to visit were parking lots in the heartland of America. Old shopping mall lots were preferable, big with good visibility from the highway. The DeLuis brothers found it remarkable how even in this age of cell phones and MP3 players, SUVs and the most sanitized American dream the country had seen since Eisenhower, families still flocked to seedy carnivals.

  It’s something simply inherent in human nature. We flock to the unknown, the overpriced and the deep-fried.

  The entire ordeal was one big freak show to most patrons, an opportunity to laugh at a few redneck high school drop-outs. They were above the poor folks who had no refuge outside of trailers and striped tents. Upon arriving, these families fancied themselves strong-willed and smarter than your average carnival folk. They had a suburban castle to return to at the end of the day, after all.

  George and Francis DeLuis were happy to say that they had bested even the most Pleasant Valley Sunday of their patrons and made them gasp in awe.

  Now, when the carnival picked up and moved, they didn’t always know exactly where they were going to land. Only George knew, and he liked to keep people on their toes by keeping his lips locked.

  That weekend they landed in Lancaster.

  Lancaster, Ohio, surrounded by hills, was miles and miles away from the coast. George DeLuis loved it just as he loved anywhere that was miles away from the coast.

  Outside the big top planted in the parking lot of a shoddy shopping mall, Quinnish Stern winked at a woman covered in tattoos. Ah, tattooed women. Illustrated women, he called them, due to a life-long love affair with the works of Ray Bradbury. This one waved back, daring to take her hand from her disinterested beau. Her man examined the strong man closely, enviously.

  “We’ve been waiting for you all day,” Quinnish called.

  The woman chuckled. “Have you?”

  “Just for you. The show is about to begin.”

  She put her hands on her hips and pursed her black-painted mouth. “I’m too impatient. I couldn’t sit still to watch a show.”

  “Dear lady, I assure you, you won’t want this one to end,” Quinnish said and motioned broadly to the flap of the red and gold tent. “Tigers, lions, a moving statue that will visit both your dreams and nightmares! Romance and danger! Not to mention, the best popcorn being served in the state.”

  The woman shook her head, but still grinned. “I’m sorry. No, thanks.”

  Quinnish smirked, and he began to sing.

  “But do not leave quite yet, I say,

  Gather ‘round! Come! Step this way!

  The show, dear friends, is set to start,

  Nothing short of a work of art!”

  The tattooed woman’s beau was the first to take notice. He stuck his nose in the air like an eager pit bull and stumbled away from the strong man, who looked to Quinnish gratefully as he placed plugs in his ears. The corn dog man and the ancient who worked the merry-go-round did the same, and Quinnish continued his singing.

  “See wild beasts with eyes so bright,

  A man walk ‘cross a rope so tight,

  Moving statues, strong and tall,

  And ladies and gents, that is not all.”

  Children dragged their parents toward the big top, abandoning their cotton candy on the asphalt and crying of lions and tigers. More than one peppy girlfriend pushed her boyfriend in the direction of the show, asking if he had his wallet on him.

  “We’ve been waiting for each one of you,

  We’ve an awful lot to say and do.

  This must be your lucky day!

  All you have t
o do is pay…”

  “Five dollars, please,” he said to the tattooed woman once her boyfriend practically carried her to the tent. Quinnish smiled warmly and held out one pale and spidery hand. She reached into her pocket, and her eyes never left his. “Thank you,” he said with a deep nod and one more wink.

  Later that afternoon, Quinnish found out that she had Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn tattooed on her tits.

  Once the throngs of eager patrons had been ushered into the big top, Quinnish flipped through his handful of five dollar bills and smiled to himself before pocketing them in his grey coat. He adjusted his waistcoat and stood erect, his dark eyes darting over the parking lot. Save for a lot of carnies with earplugs, the lot was empty. He drew a deep, contented breath.

  “Nice job, Quinnish,” Francis DeLuis slurred as he stumbled to Quinnish’s side. He didn’t just smell of whisky or wine or beer; he smelled like an entire bar. He put his ringmaster’s hat atop his head at a rakish angle and took out his own ear plugs. “Do I look good?”

  “You smell awful,” Quinnish said.

  “I didn’t ask how I smelled!” Francis laughed. “How do I look, dammit?”

  “Great, Francis.”

  “Good. Now punch me.”

  Quinnish nodded and did as he was told.

  “Oh yeah. Thank you. I needed that,” he said with a sniff as he realigned his stubbly jaw. “Here we go again.” Francis charged into the big top with his head held high, yelling the sort of grandiose things any ringmaster knew how to yell.

  The tattooed woman—whose name was Tina, Quinnish found out from an illustration on her shoulder—left his trailer to find her beau just as George DeLuis arrived. Quinnish buttoned his shirt and slipped on a hoodie that was a little more comfortable than his costume. There was a Lovecraft paperback in the pocket. He set it aside for later and flicked on the lights.

  “Wowee. She’s not bad,” George grunted as he sat in an old armchair across from Quinnish’s bed.

  “She wasn’t, no.”