by Jeff Strand
For that’s where monsters live.
And if left to its own devices, that’s where it would stay, an afternoon’s entertainment immortalized in deformity. But as the night wears on, dark clouds roll across the heavens and blot out the stars. The air crackles with static electricity. The inhabitants of the house moan softly in their sleep, the atmospheric alchemy creeping into their dreams. A low rumble of thunder sounds in the distance. The horizon flickers like a strobe. A dog whimpers and huddles beneath a kitchen table, tail tucked meekly between furry legs. A storm is working itself up into a fury.
Slowly, sinisterly, it comes closer, a destructive leviathan determined to live its short life to the full. Above the attic, a swirling maelstrom of dark clouds gathers, glaring down malevolently at the fragile building below. A blue-white flash of electricity is spat out and fizzles down the spine of the house. It races up wires and down cables, frantically searching for mischief. A spark flies onto the malformed figure. The fuses blow with a bang. Everybody in the house awakens.
Everybody.
And everything.
* * * * *
At the back of the attic, beneath a cobweb awning, tucked away in the corner where the draughts whisper cold tales, there is movement.
Being, arguably, the most intelligent, it’s Cindy the Doll who becomes aware first. Looking down at her new, surgically enhanced frame, she lets out an anguished wail. Downstairs, Cody the terrier pricks up his ears and whines in sympathy.
The screaming encourages Bobby the Teddy Bear’s slow stirring, and he awakes to find that his brain is now a co-operative. He feels confused, and then annoyed—curious feelings for a creature that has only ever known loving cuddles.
Lastly, RX82, Killer Robot, activates. Its sensors struggle to assimilate the flood of data coursing through its electronic synapses, and it quickly finds itself faced with a conundrum: there are intruders in its circuits; they have to be terminated; but to do so means terminating itself; and that contradicts its survival programming.
It’s a tricky one.
A cold fury has replaced Cindy’s hysteria. She wants answers. And payback.
“What’s happened to me?” she cries. “Who...what am I? Did you do this?”
“No.”
“Negative.”
Reply Bobby Bear and RX82.
“Who are you anyway? Why are you in my head? Why is part of me green?” cries Bobby Bear. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
“Certainly not!”
“Negative.”
Reply Cindy and RX82.
Meanwhile, the mechanized part of the triumvirate has come to a decision.
“Doll and Bear to be assimilated,” it says. “Prepare to launch counter-strike. Locating targets...”
“What does that mean?” says Bobby Bear. If he’d had any paws left he might have scratched his head.
“It means, stupid, that we’re not going to take this lying down,” says Cindy coldly.
She clenches her new muscular hand into a fist.
* * * * *
Eddie Van Twaalfhoven lies in bed listening to the storm recede into the distance. Phew, that was a big one. For a moment he thought the house was going to fall down. He’s not scared though. Having just turned nine, he’s a big boy now and not afraid of anything. Though at that precise moment, he hears a scratching noise coming from up above.
From the attic.
Despite his fearlessness, he clutches the sheets a little tighter and pulls them to his chin. He knows, as every young child does, that nothing wicked can penetrate the magic bedclothes. Just so long as everything’s covered. Leave a stray hand or foot outside its protective barrier though, and you’re asking for trouble. Wide-eyed he stares at the ceiling as the scratching comes again, this time a little further along. His lampshade shakes a fraction as a faint thud sounds. A pattern begins to form.
Scratch—thud.
Scratch—thud.
Scratch—thud
It sounds as if something is alive up there. He wonders what it could be. A bird? Maybe a bat? That would be cool. Oh no. Surely Cody hasn’t got up there? Did he forget to push the stairs back up? That wouldn’t be cool, because it would mean he’s in even more trouble. And that’s the last thing he wants after the day’s events.
It had started with a loud, high-pitched scream, as his sister, Nancy, found the remains of her mutilated dolls and cuddly toys. Instinctively, Eddie had protested his innocence. But as the resident inventor in the house, with a huge canon of work to his credit, he was never going to get away with it. Plan B was to point out that he’d sacrificed one of his own toys, too—a treasured killer robot from Mars.
But that didn’t help either.
Punishment had been swift and terrible: exiled to his bedroom without milk and cookies. Now, as he hears his stomach rumble, he thinks of sneaking down to the kitchen and raiding the biscuit jar. Thankfully, the scratching sounds have stopped now. He risks flopping a hot arm outside the coverlet.
Nothing grabs it.
It’s safe to come out.
He plans his mission. In his mind he sees himself silently making his way downstairs—the Cookie Ninja. He’s just fighting off the evil forces of Nancy when sleep reaches up and drags him back down into its murky depths.
* * * * *
“Ok, what now?” says Bobby Bear, a little breathlessly.
Progress has been slow, their new anatomy proving impervious to any kind of fluid motion. But like reluctant colleagues at an office team-building day, they work together and manage to produce an acceptable, if ungainly, movement. Now they pause at the trapdoor. Its four sides are illuminated by thin slivers of light from below. It looks like the door to heaven.
“Now we get the fuck down from here,” says Cindy, her remaining eye staring wildly.
“Yes, I know that,” says Bobby Bear, “but how?”
“How the hell should I know?” says Cindy. She moves to slap him with her one of her new limbs, but then remembers that she’d only be slapping herself. Traces of vanity remain, and although she’s only been left with an arm, an eye, a slice of cheek and half a jawbone, part of her has a vague memory of once being beautiful. Even now, she wants to look her best. Besides, her arm is now his arm, too. It’s all very confusing.
“Wait a minute,” says Bobby Bear, “it’s...um...I’m...I mean, we’re onto something.”
Cindy and Bobby feel their new robot circuits rapidly processing data. It’s the feeling you get when the dentist pushes a whirring drill into your molars.
“Targets located,” says RX82. “Prepare to initiate termination.”
* * * * *
Eric Van Twaalfhoven is seriously pissed off. It’s been a hard weekend. Of course it’s nice having the kids. He had to fight hard enough to make his bitch of a wife—ex-wife—let him see them. But if he’s honest, part of him is glad he’s not doing this full-time. He works hard all week at the office, and come the weekend, all he fancies doing is sinking a few beers with the guys and lazing around the house watching the golf. But he’s hardly had a moment to relax. Nancy’s at that age when she needs constant entertaining, which usually involves having to take her to watch some shitty film about teenage vampires with floppy hair. Two hours of that shit. At least Eddie can keep himself entertained, making all those weird models. Yeah, until he had to go and cut up his sister’s dolls. He felt bad sending the kid to bed, but you’ve got to teach them to respect other people’s belongings. And now, just as he was finally catching up on some sleep, the damn fuse-box blows and he’s stubbing his toes in the dark trying to get the power back on before the freezer defrosts and he’s left with a week’s supply of soggy pizzas.
As he’s coming back up the stairs he hears a thumping noise coming from the attic. What the fuck? Through the doorway, he can see his bed. It beckons, a warm seductress willing him to lay his weary head on two large, soft, white breasts. But something tells him to have a quick look at whatever’s making the strange
noise. Like it or not, he’s got responsibilities. And if that storm has knocked out something else electrical, well, that’s how fires start. Sighing, he pulls down the steps and flicks on the light. As his head appears through the trapdoor, the first thing he sees is one of Eddie’s fucked up projects. Some kind of robot-doll-Muppet thing. It stares at him with five lopsided eyes.
He smirks.
It’s kinda creepy.
Then it moves.
By the time he’s registered that the fucking thing’s alive, a red laser beam has shot out from its chest and burnt out both his retinas. Now his face looks like a snowman’s, with two pieces of charcoal for eyes.
* * * * *
Nancy Van Twaalfoven is woken by a bump in the night. Not again. She’s only just dozed off after the thunder and lightning woke her. But this sounds like something inside the house. Muscles tensed, she waits in the dark, her mind already racing away to the dark corners of the imagination where the serial killers and evil clowns live. It takes a while for the rational part of her mind to catch up and usher its irrational sibling back into the ‘Reasonable Explanations for Nocturnal Noise’ department. So now she thinks:
Cody the terrier on a midnight ramble.
A falling golf club in the cupboard.
A horrible little turd of a brother with a weak bladder.
All of these possible explanations are now given preference. Robert Pattison pouts disinterestedly from her bedroom wall. As her eyelids start to droop, the sound of a tiny voice outside her door brings the dissipating terror rushing back to boiling point.
“Nannnnncy.”
The voice is Britney Spears using Stephen Hawking’s voice-box. It’s weirdly familiar. Her eyes widen and she feels her coiled intestines shift like nervous snakes. She props herself up on one elbow, eyes squinting in the gloom.
“Who’s there?” she asks, following it with a hopeful, “Dad?’
“Nancy, come on we want to play!” says the voice again, only this time it sounds like Yogi Bear after a tracheotomy. Under the door she sees a shadow. It lurks, waiting for a response.
“Don’t make us come in and get you,” says the voice a final time. Hawkings, Spears and Yogi Bear are now all speaking at once.
And then Nancy feels a red mist rise, scattering her fear to the corners of the room. That little turd! Scaring her half-to-death in the middle of the night with his stupid pranks. He just doesn’t know when to stop! She tears back her bedclothes and jumps to her feet, her pretty mouth twisted into a determined grimace.
Yanking open the door, she glares out, expecting to see the idiotic grin and tousled bed-hair of a nine year old turd. Instead, the corridor is silent and empty. She feels a soft scratch on her ankle. As she looks down, she sees a set of fleshy bagpipes, lidless eyes of all different sizes staring up at her. She recognizes parts of her doll and teddy bear in there, too, and even amidst her terror, there’s a stab of righteous indignation. The thing starts to pulsate and throb, a collapsed lung desperate for air. As it slithers towards her bare feet, she’s too scared to move. So when a plastic arm stretches out clutching a craft knife, it doesn’t have far to reach to slice neatly through her Achilles tendon.
* * * * *
Nancy’s screaming again.
Eddie’s eyes open for the second time that night. He lies still, as dark outlines of bedroom furniture emerge shyly from the blackness. He wonders what her problem is now. Probably thinks she’s seen a mouse. But even as he thinks it, he knows that it’s not true. This was a real scream.
Blood-curdling.
Something is wrong.
He waits for the sound of his father’s bedroom door opening, the sound of strength, reassurance and decisiveness. But it’s not forthcoming. And now he’s faced with a dilemma no nine-year old should ever have to ponder.
What to do?
To his credit, he immediately swings his legs up and out of their protective cotton cocoon, feeling the cold night air immediately rush in to prey on his warmth. Padding softly across the varnished floorboards, a boy-panther, he reaches the door and pauses, before bending down and placing his ear against the keyhole. Eyes wide, he strains to listen.
Silence at first.
Then fragments of whispers. A quiet cacophony of malicious, manufactured voices.
“...commence final stage...”
“...can see him, he’s behind the...”
“...cut it there, where it’s soft...”
“...why are you telling...”
“...hush, stupid, he’s listening...”
Eddie stands, quickly looking around the bedroom for a makeshift weapon. There are things out there. And they’re coming to get him. The survival instinct kicks in, that hardwired defense mechanism that lays dormant within all of us, waiting to be summoned in times of need. A miniature golf club is seized, the one that he uses with his father. It’s cut the air to pieces on many occasions. Now he needs it to connect with something more substantial.
Back to the wall, he pulls it up behind his head, a perfect swing that would have drawn a gasp of admiration from Van Twaalfhoven senior, had he still possessed eyes to see. Then he waits, legs trembling.
Light floods in.
Retinas shrink.
As the door slowly swings open, the young boy learns that fear simply doesn’t know when to stop. Once it has you on the rack, it can always push you a little further, no matter how much the bones crack and the joints pop and the skin tear.
The strange voices come again, gargling in unison.
“Where have you been hiding, we’ve been looking all over for you!”
Eddie screams.
He’d be mortified to know that he sounds just like his sister.
* * * * *
After a furious night’s work, many arguments, and a lot of blood, the Van Twaalfhoven family are reunited. What’s left of them is reminiscent of something cast on an amateur potter’s wheel, only clay has been replaced by flesh. A cadaverous termite mound now sits on the landing of the house, chunks of flesh wrapped up in glistening gray tentacles of intestine. Like a pizza that’s been overturned in its box, the individual parts have become indistinguishable from the mass, though one can occasionally recognize the black olive of an eyeball, or a salami slice of kidney.
It’s a collage of corpses.
The family get-together from Hell.
Cody the terrier is the only one left untouched. Being of a cowardly nature, he’s spent the night shuddering in his basket, as agonized cries and unearthly voices echoed through the house. Only now does he dare show his furry face, hunger finally conquering his cowardice. He mounts the stairs nervously, confused by the aromatic union of father, son and daughter. A hopeful wag of the tail. A whine as he sees the scarlet sculpture ahead of him. The bottom of it drips rhythmically, a melting popsicle of blood and gore.
Even his simple doggy brain can recognize an obscenity, and for a moment he experiences an agonizing sense of loss.
But being a dog, it’s only a moment.
He’s still hungry after all.
And, well, beggars can’t be choosers.
* * * * *
Cindy, Bobby Bear and RX82 are at something of a crossroads in their short lives.
“Mission accomplished,” says RX82. For a moment his metallic tones are infused with sadness.
“Yeah, awesome work team, that showed them,” says Cindy emptily.
“That was fun!” says the irrepressibly optimistic Bobby. But everyone knows he’s just putting on a brave face.
And then it’s quiet, none of them knowing quite what to say or do.
“So what now?” says Cindy, “I still look like a dog’s dinner.”
“Funny you should say that,” says Bobby.
“Organic life-form detected,” says RX82, weakly.
One toy would be exciting enough for Cody the terrier. But now he sees huge pile of them, all conveniently lumped together for his enjoyment. Having just enjoyed the finest feast
of his life, he licks his bloody chops and switches to PLAY mode, which is one of only four modes that he possesses, the others being EAT, SHIT and HIDE. He used to have HUMP, too, but that disappeared on the day a veterinary took his balls.
Cody gallops towards them, wagging his tail furiously like a demented orchestra conductor.
RX82 is spent, a night of slaughter having exhausted its batteries. It just doesn’t have the will to fight.
Bobby Bear is delighted to be given one last chance to play. Mutilating people always felt a bit odd anyway.
Cindy is relieved. For a girl that’s been used to the finer things in life, being a bit player in a mutant cephalopod has been unbearable. As Cody’s right fang sinks into her mascara-lined eye, she embraces oblivion.
This whole thing has been a nightmare from start to finish.
Give it a Name
Gary McMahon
It is time.
You have waited years for this moment, trying to forget, to put it out of your head, but it has finally arrived. Even your wife, before she lost her mind and was put inside an institution, could not convince you to face the reality of what is meant to happen. You preferred to wait, and to tell yourself that you would solve the puzzle before the allotted time ran out.
The clock strikes midnight and you cannot help but smile: so clichéd, so like every scary story you have ever read. A chill breeze enters the room, wafting across your face, and all of a sudden you smell the fetid odor of wet soil.
He is here; he is already somewhere inside the house.
You could just sit and wait, but that would be too passive. You feel the need to act, to take the battle to him, so you pick up the gun from the table at your side, get up from out of the chair, and walk slowly across the room.
The lights are out. It is dark inside the house. He probably feels more at home in darkness, but for some reason you do not want to turn on the lights. Is it because you can’t face how he looks, not for a second time? You’d rather encounter his goblin-like features in the gloom?
You stand by the door and listen. The house is quiet. There are no sounds of footsteps in the hall; there is no creaking of timber as somebody slowly climbs the stairs.
