Monsters

by David Alexander Robertson

  Eva shook her head and ignored Cole. “How much longer do you think you’ll be in here anyway, Dad?”

  “I’ve no idea. Nobody says anything to me. But if I can’t laugh, I probably can’t go home yet,” Wayne said.

  “Maybe if they actually paid attention to you,” Cole said.

  “What kind of attention are they giving the patients anyway?” Eva asked.

  Wayne shrugged, which also made him wince. “I just see doctors wheeling them back and forth every now and then. It’s funny, though…” Wayne paused for a moment, thoughtfully “…we keep talking about how they’ve recovered, but they don’t look all that better to me.”

  “They look sicker?” Eva asked.

  “Kind of,” he said. “Not the same sick, but not well? I’m not a doctor.”

  “Why would they be sick at all?” Cole wondered out loud.

  “Okay dad, can I ask you a question?” Eva asked firmly.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “It’s important.”

  “Yes, I know that look on your face.”

  “When I was seven, did you ever give me something from Mihko?” she asked.

  “What? Give you what from Mihko?”

  “Like medicine, or vitamins? Something? Maybe you didn’t even know what they were, maybe…”

  “Eva, I would never—”

  “Visiting hours are…over.” A guard at the door sounded out of breath.

  Cole checked his phone. “It’s not even eleven-thirty, what are you talking about?”

  “We just got here,” Eva said.

  “Your father requested medical attention,” the guard said.

  “I thought about requesting medical attention,” Wayne clarified.

  “And you’re not a doctor, man,” Cole said. “What are you going to do, intimidate his pain away?”

  “A doctor is on the way, and you two have to leave.” The guard stepped sideways to give Cole and Eva room to clear out.

  “We were talking,” Wayne said, sounding desperate to find out what Eva had been getting at. Cole knew the feeling, and by the looks of her, so did Eva.

  “Dad, this is bullsh—”

  “Get out. Now!” the guard demanded.

  “Just go,” Wayne said. “I’ll text you, okay? We can talk about this later.” He picked up the book and smiled to try and relax his daughter and Cole. Himself, too. But both kids could tell it was forced. “These Harlequin romances can wear an old man out.”

  “I’ll text you,” Eva promised, and they left.

  They were escorted by the guard all the way through the clinic to the front doors. When they got there, they found Brady along with a few other visitors complaining to each other.

  “You, too?” Cole asked Brady on the way out.

  Brady snapped his fingers. “Like that. Barely got a chance to say hi to her.”

  “How’d she look?” Cole asked, remembering what Wayne had said. He hadn’t been sick with the flu, but Brady’s kókom had.

  “Tired,” Brady said.

  “Tired like she was still sick or…”

  “Like she almost died,” Brady said sharply, and then he sighed sharply, too. “Sorry, Cole, I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just…I wanted to see her.”

  Michael checked his phone as they approached him. “You were in there for like, five minutes. Why’d they kick everybody out?”

  “Don’t ask,” Eva said, “because we have no idea.”

  “They wanted to shut us up,” Cole said. “We were onto something.”

  “What, with the vitamins?” Eva asked.

  “Why not? You think that was a coincidence?”

  “I don’t know.” Eva breathed heavily. “Are we supposed to think they had, what, the room bugged or something?”

  “They run secret experiments on kids, so why not bug a room?”

  Brady held his stomach. “Maybe we can discuss conspiracy theories over lunch at the Fish.”

  “There’s time now anyway,” Eva said.

  “That’s the spot for conspiracy theories,” Michael said.

  “Oh,” Cole said, trying to get into the conversation with Michael, “you mean Victor?”

  “Victor and the beast,” Eva said. “It’s crap.”

  “It’s not crap,” Brady said.

  “Yeah, that’s like a Mistapew sighting—” Michael started.

  “Mistapew…Big Foot?” Cole said.

  “—like that video on the internet from Norway House a few years ago,” Michael said. “That was just somebody in a Chewbacca suit. What Victor saw? Some dude acting crazy in the woods.”

  “Cole, tell me I’m not alone here. You believe the stories, right?” Brady asked.

  Cole nodded.

  “I don’t care who says they saw it,” Eva said. “There’s no such thing.”

  “But it’s not just Victor. More than one person has seen it,” Brady said.

  “So more than one person has seen somebody acting crazy in the woods,” Michael said. “Simple.”

  “Somebody has the time to do that?” Cole asked. “Run around and act crazy?”

  “You can’t just fake-act like Upayokwitigo,” Brady said.

  “Upayok…” Cole tried to repeat what Brady had said.

  Eva explained, “It means He Who Lives Alone in Cree. Nobody will ever actually say wit—”

  “Shut it, Eve,” Brady said.

  “I didn’t say anything!”

  “You did with your eyes!”

  “Why won’t anybody say it?” Cole asked.

  “I don’t know,” Brady said. “It’s a curse, you know? It’s like if somebody sees a black cat cross the road, they won’t drive down that road.”

  “It’s a superstition,” Eva said.

  “Can we just go for lunch and ignore Victor?” Michael asked, and took Eva’s hand firmly. He glanced at Cole. Cole noticed. It was time for them to be alone. He nodded at Michael, conceding.

  “You guys go on,” Cole said. “I brought a lunch.”

  4

  EASY, TIGER

  THE MORE COLE WALKED AROUND THE SCHOOL, the more he realized that the high school wasn’t simply reminiscent of the elementary school, it was the exact same layout. He knew where all the bathrooms were. Where the janitor’s closet was. The office. The gym.

  He’d forsaken time at the Fish, time with his friends, for what his therapist called “exposure therapy.” She would’ve been proud to see him do it. She used to tell him that if something seemed too big for him, too impossible, then he needed to face it. He had to face it. And if he did, the big impossibility would seem smaller. Possible, even. Cole felt like a seven-year-old again, walking around the school.

  One moment, it felt easy, remembering how he used to hide in his locker then jump out to scare the crap out of Brady, Eva, or Ashley. Or escape into the furnace room with his friends and pretend that they’d travelled to another world.

  The next moment, he heard screams. He felt heat. He saw fire. The chaos he remembered became the chaos in his body. In his tumbling heartbeat. In his shaking limbs. In his clammy skin.

  “So, do you solve complex math problems on blackboards when nobody else is around, or what?”

  Cole jumped.

  He’d been bracing himself against the wall, distracted by the bad memories, wrapped up in trying to use his calm breathing. Pam snuck up without him noticing at all.

  “Whoa, easy, tiger.” She put her hand against his back to keep him from falling on her.

  He steadied himself with her help and turned around so that they were face to face. “Huh?”

  “I said, have you ever taken a job as a janitor at a college just so you could solve complex math problems in secret because you’re, and I quote, ‘wicked smaht.’”

  “Oh, Good Will Hunting. Got it.”

  “Nice one. I’ve been waiting to meet another movie nerd.”

  Cole laughed, but it came out all wrong, probably because his heart was still racing. �
�Yeah, I do all the…math, m-mostly at MIT, just without the…the monologues.” He could hardly string a few words together. Keep it short, he thought.

  “And therapists? Have a shitload of them lined up so you can screw around with them?”

  “Got that c-covered. Only one, though.”

  “Yeah? Interesting.” Pam grabbed his arm to keep him steady. She walked him down the hallway, forcing him to continue his tour of the high school.

  “Psychiatrist…back in the city. Not s-so interesting.”

  “Anxiety, right?”

  “How did you—”

  “I’m psychic.” She put two fingers to her temple and looked to be concentrating really hard, but, just as fast she said, “No, I’m kidding, it’s just ridiculously obvious. What happened?”

  “Being here, it’s so…much like the ele-elementary school, I…” Cole desperately tried to stay in the moment, so he didn’t seem like a total loser, but he didn’t do so well. He started to feel worse. “It just r-reminds me of…”

  “Hey, say no more. I get it.” Pam stopped them in their tracks. She grabbed Cole’s waist, and turned him towards her. She nodded sharply. “Are you okay, really? Can I do something? Maybe give you some more movie trivia?”

  “I’ll be fine. It’ll…pass.”

  “Maybe you should go lie down for a bit. You’re talking like you’re freezing cold, Harper.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Do you know where the nurse’s office is? I could totally walk you there.” She re-fastened her arm around his.

  “Some hero…right? Can’t even h-handle…first day of school.” Cole struggled to keep his knees from buckling, and to not let her see how shaky his entire body was.

  “The best heroes are flawed, Harper. Come on, if you’re really a nerd you would know that from all the comics.” She tugged him in the direction of the nurse’s office.

  “No, I know the way.” Cole had embarrassed himself enough. If he had to use the wall to get there, he’d do it.

  If she were disappointed that he didn’t invite her to walk with him to the nurse’s office, she didn’t show it.

  “Cool, see you in gym,” she said, like they’d just passed each other in the hallway.

  Cole took a seat on one of the wooden chairs in the nurse’s office. He put his head between his legs and tried to breathe the way he’d been taught to breathe, but he failed miserably at it. Pam had been right: it did feel like he was cold. Naked, outside, in the middle of winter. He couldn’t catch his breath, let alone breathe in for five seconds, out for seven seconds. The nurse’s office reminded him of Alex, ten years ago, when Cole brought her to the nurse at the elementary school. She was hunched over while the nurse applied peroxide and then bandaged her scrape. She held Cole’s hand, squeezing it with each sting of the peroxide. Alex had recounted this moment to him the night she was murdered.

  Cole started to see black spots in his vision.

  “Just a minute.”

  Cole heard a chair roll across the floor.

  “It…it’s f-fine.”

  It was. He knew it was. Each time he felt like this a little voice in his head told him that he was going to die, but he hadn’t died yet.

  “Cole?”

  He still had his head between his knees. He looked up to find Dr. Captain standing in front of him.

  “Dr. Captain?” Cole said with the same intonation Dr. Captain had used.

  “Oh, dear.” She rushed over to the sink, filled a small paper cup with water, and brought it over to him. Cole took it, and sipped it. She checked his pulse, felt his heartbeat, and watched the seconds tick on the clock on the wall. “One forty-four,” she whispered to herself.

  “Is that b-bad?”

  “You’re fine. We just need to calm you down.” She moved to the side and put a hand on his shoulder.

  Cole took another sip of water. He tried to take a deep breath in through his nose, and managed two seconds worth of inhalation. Three seconds of exhalation. “What…what are you d-doing here?”

  “Volunteering.” Dr. Captain sighed. “I needed…need…to keep busy.”

  “Mike said you were on leave.” Cole leaned forward. “Shouldn’t that m-mean that you’re…you’re resting?”

  “They told me it’d be good for me, with everything that’s happened,” she said. “Alex. Everything.”

  “Makes sense d-doesn’t it?” Four seconds in, five seconds out, Cole thought. His heart was evening out a bit. He guessed his heart rate was about one twenty-two.

  Dr. Captain shrugged. “I need to work. Work is my distraction. If I didn’t have it…”

  “Yeah, I know about distractions, Dr. Captain.”

  “Plus, usually that’s a choice you’re given, not something you’re told to do. They don’t know the people here. I do.”

  Cole took a deep breath, held it, and breathed out. His vision was fine now. “We were just at the clinic. They kicked us out. Everybody who was there. It was so weird.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t think they want us around. Us kids. We—” Cole hesitated.

  “Is this about what happened with the flu? Your blood?”

  “It could be.”

  “Cole, I want you to know that I never told them about what happened, okay? Have any of you?”

  “Not that I know of.” Cole breathed again. In. Out. “I don’t know, maybe it’s just our imaginations. But, I mean, I was there the other day looking for you. They wouldn’t even let me in the door. My whole life is one big question mark.”

  Dr. Captain knelt down and took a good look at Cole. “You weren’t feeling well when you came to look for me? Did you have another panic attack?”

  “I was…worried about having one,” Cole said.

  “Have you been having a lot of them?” Dr. Captain took Cole’s wrist, watched the clock, and counted. “One-twelve. Better.”

  “I’ve been having them.”

  She grabbed a blood pressure metre from across the room, secured the Velcro strap around his arm, and started pumping the little black ball. “Any different from the city?”

  “It kind of comes in waves. Anxiety. More now than before, yeah.”

  “I can’t say I blame you with what you’ve been through.” She watched his blood pressure reading intently. “And you were coming to see me because…” she unstrapped it. She didn’t seem concerned.

  “I take medication when it gets bad. Anti-anxiety meds. I didn’t have many when I got here, and then I spilled most of them on the ground last week. I was just hoping that maybe—”

  “I’d be able to get some for you.”

  “Yeah.” Cole looked down, as though he had something to be ashamed about. But she lifted his chin up. She smiled.

  “More people than you think are going through what you are, Cole.”

  “I feel like, last week, I needed them so much. Then I thought I was doing pretty good, mostly, for me, and today it’s like I’m back at square one.”

  “You don’t need to explain yourself.” Dr. Captain pulled up a chair and sat in front of him. “I don’t have meds, though. I do at the clinic, but I can’t get in there.”

  “Not even for a second?” Cole asked. “That sounds like more than just being on leave.”

  Dr. Captain slapped her knees softly, then rubbed her hands against them. She leaned forward, elbows against thighs. “I want to know what’s going on in there, too. Sounds like we both do. Especially now that they’ve kicked people out suddenly.”

  “Well can’t you, like, go there at night? Do you still have a key?”

  “There are always guards now, and they took away my key. So, no. I think…” but she didn’t finish her thought.

  “You think?”

  “I don’t want to cause you more anxiety. You’ve done enough.”

  “I know that I haven’t,” Cole said. “It’s why I’m still here.” But the whole doing thing, the reason why he was here, remained a m
ystery. He thought of Choch, and that he’d actually like to see the spirit being. Even his messed up, vague clues were better than silence. The silence wasn’t as nice now as it was this morning. He should’ve gone to the Fish. Maybe, today, Choch would’ve been there, after what had happened at the clinic. Maybe—

  “Cole,” Dr. Captain said.

  “Huh?”

  “I lost you there for a second. You okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry. Just thinking. What were we…?”

  “You were saying that you’re still here for something, that you hadn’t done enough. Personally, I think that’s a bit of an understatement. But—”

  “This is my life,” Cole said. “My therapist says I’ll always have anxiety.”

  “Yes, and manage it, and avoid getting involved in things like this.”

  “No, not avoid. That’s the worst thing to do. Anxiety tells me I can’t do stuff all the time. I’m never supposed to listen to it. Dr. Captain, I’ve been stabbed, I’ve been choked, I’ve been shot at, I’ve seen my friends—” Cole paused. He skipped over the part where Dr. Captain’s daughter died. “I’ve handled it before and I’ll keep handling it. Pills or not. Just tell me what I can do. Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

  Dr. Captain stood up. She put out her hand and helped Cole up, too. She looked deep into his eyes, trying to determine, Cole felt, if he could really handle it.

  Finally, she said, “Those files you were talking about. Do you still have them?”

  “No,” Cole lamented, “but I want to find them. You think they’ll help?”

  “I think they’re all we have. I think it’s a start.”

  5

  GYM CLASS HERO

  JAYNE’S ABSENCE WAS ALMOST MORE PROBLEMATIC than Choch’s. She failed to appear after Cole had called her on several occasions over the last week. He’d finally gone looking for her where he thought she might be—the ruins, the cemetery—but not the most obvious place: the camp. It was the last place he’d seen Jayne, and where Scott had hid while murdering Cole’s friends. It was where Cole found the files in the first place, and where Scott stabbed him in the heart. Cole didn’t think he’d be able to go there without his heart exploding, his palms soaking with sweat, his body shaking, the world spinning out of control. But what were the other options? If anybody knew where the files were, it was Jayne. After all, he left her at the camp specifically to keep an eye on them.