Monsters

by David Alexander Robertson

  Cole opened the door a crack—just enough to peek inside. The good news was his fellow students were not, in fact, waiting to pounce on him for being an alleged arsonist. They were participating in gym class, and when Cole had cracked open the door he heard the distinctive sound of basketballs bouncing. Of course they were playing basketball when Cole wasn’t there. The one time they’d played basketball in the gym for God knows how long, and Choch made sure they did because he was late.

  “Guess you found a way to really punish me, if you weren’t going to give me man-makers,” Cole whispered to Choch, and he knew that the spirit being heard him even though he didn’t say anything in response. The basketballs bouncing on the waxed floor was response enough.

  He opened the door another inch and surveyed the class, kid by kid, until he found Brady. He was shooting free throws with Eva and Michael. Eva and Michael. Had Eva heard about Cole going to the Fish with Pam? What did she think about it? And if she knew, Michael did, too. What did he think? Would he treat Cole differently? Oh but you do whine, don’t you? Choch pushed his way into Cole’s head.

  “I have a lot to think about,” Cole whispered.

  You whine like a little girl.

  “You’re teasing me like you’re a student.”

  What did you say to Tristan again? When in Rome?

  “Calling me a little girl because I’m whining is sexist, you know.”

  Gasp. I am not sexist, CB. Heck, I’m the world’s first feminist. I created women! And men, but contextually, we’re talking about women, so…

  “Okay, well I’m going to go.” Cole pulled out his phone and texted Brady. He hoped that Brady had his phone on him.

  COLE: Brady, I’m outside gym doors. Come here.

  Cole watched Brady intently. His friend took a shot and made it. Cole was the only person who couldn’t make a shot, and the only student in his class on a basketball team. There you go again, CB.

  “Get out of my head for the millionth time!”

  Brady took a pass from Michael, but then bounced the ball over to Eva right away and fished his phone out of his pocket. Cole watched as Brady looked at his phone, shook his head, then wrote something back.

  BRADY: You come here. You’re supposed to be in this class?

  COLE: I kind of got held up BY MY GRANDMA AND AUNTIE!

  BRADY: Yeah, your auntie kicked me out. Of my own house.

  COLE: Sounds about right. So…

  BRADY: Fine.

  Brady stuck his phone back into his pocket, motioned something to Eva and Michael, then jogged over to the doors. They talked through the partially opened door.

  “How bad is it?” Cole asked.

  Brady looked confused. “That’s a loaded question. You could be referencing any number of things.”

  “The fire,” Cole said.

  “Okay, so, what sort of scale are we working with? What’s really bad, and what’s not so bad?”

  “I—”

  “Is really bad maybe something like finding you passed out on the front steps my house? And is not-so-bad the fact that you didn’t tell Eva about you and Pam?”

  “Did you?”

  “What did I tell you about honesty, my friend? When Eva asks me what we did last night, and I have to tell her what I did, and what you did, do you think I’d lie to her?”

  Cole kicked the ground and this created a squeak that echoed down the hall. “No.”

  “I mean, all you had to do was text her and tell her, right?”

  “Okay!” Cole said. “So that’s, sure, that’s not as bad as the steps thing…”

  “Which we have to talk about.”

  “Yes, but can we…”

  “To answer your question, I don’t think it’s as bad as you think,” Brady said. “And that’s me knowing full well how you think.”

  “So no pitchforks?”

  “No pitchforks, but some kids are saying that they saw you at the mall late, too.”

  “On the group text.”

  “It’s, like, social media,” Brady said apologetically, “what can I say?”

  Cole turned away and the door started to close but Brady caught it. Cole slammed his palm against the wall. “One person says they saw me, and now others say they saw me. If it were somebody else, nobody would say a goddamn thing.”

  “Maybe, but honestly, it’s not that bad. Just come in and act normal. For you. You did stop a murderer.”

  Cole faced Brady again. “Doesn’t anybody think, you know, that I hate fire? Because of what happened? Why would I set fires?”

  “Hey, you’re preaching to the choir.” Brady opened the door all the way, and held it that way. “Now, come on. It’ll be okay, I promise.”

  Cole hesitated a moment longer, then he walked through the opened door and into the gym. “You better be right,” Cole said while passing Brady.

  For the most part, Brady had been right. Walking towards Eva and Michael, Cole noticed only a few negative looks. He felt better, as well, when he met eyes with Pam. He even laughed when he waved at her, and she, rather than waving back, made a cross out of her two index fingers before rolling her eyes like, see? Told you people were fickle. For Pam, maybe one student thinking badly about Cole was one too many. Shockingly, Michael was not one of the kids looking at Cole sideways. In fact, Michael nodded at Cole, and Cole, in turn, nodded back. Had it worked?

  “Hey, guys,” Cole said when he and Brady reached Michael and Eva.

  “What’s up?” Michael said. Every nod and word from Michael right now raised Cole’s spirits. Cole wasn’t bothered, or he simply didn’t take note, when Eva gave him a short and fast nod as though she were firing a shot at him.

  “Hey, Mike,” she said, “can you grab my phone please? It’s in my locker.”

  “Sure, why?”

  “I’m just expecting a text, that’s all.”

  Michael looked at Brady and Cole and sighed, like, such is the life of a boyfriend, and said. “Be right back, I guess. Duty calls.”

  “See ya,” Cole said.

  “Text from who? Your dad?” Brady asked when Michael had jogged out of the gym.

  “Oh no, he’s still not texting back,” Eva said.

  “So…”

  She looked at Cole. “I keep waiting for the text telling me that you’re going out with Pam. It must’ve not sent, the connection here can be bad. Right?”

  “I…” Cole stopped right there, but not by choice. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “If that’s why you were kind of busy last night, you could’ve just said that. Why didn’t you just say that?” Eva asked.

  “I didn’t know how to,” Cole said.

  “And then what? You stayed out so late with her that you just fell asleep on the front steps?”

  “Seriously?” Cole said to Brady. “It’ll be okay, I promise,” Cole imitated Brady’s promise from moments ago.

  “I wasn’t promising about this,” Brady said. “I told you, honesty, my friend. Always choose honesty.”

  “I was going to!” Cole said.

  “But it wasn’t something you had to keep from me in the first place,” Eva said. “I would’ve been like, ‘Cool, Pam’s nice,’ or something.”

  “I wasn’t out with her all night,” Cole said, trying to get away from the part where he lied to Eva by omission.

  “Do I get to hear where you were now?” Brady asked.

  “I was looking for the files…”

  “Oh!” Eva threw her arms in the air. “This keeps getting better! You did go look for them without me.”

  “Without us,” Brady said.

  “Why would you do that?” Eva asked. “We’re a team, right?”

  “I know,” Cole said, “I just thought that if I went on my own, then we,” Cole motioned to him and Eva, “wouldn’t be alone, and Michael wouldn’t hate me more, and if I didn’t go with you, I wasn’t going to ask Brady, and…”

  “Cole, you sound ridiculous,” Brady said
.

  Eva crossed her arms. That was never good. “So, did you find anything out?” She was talking now the way she’d nodded before. Short and fast.

  “I—”

  “Here,” Michael came back and handed Eva her phone. She put it in her pocket without looking. “I thought you were waiting for a text?”

  “Cole was just telling us how the search for the files went last night,” Eva said.

  “I thought you went out with Pam?” Michael said.

  “I did, and then I looked for the files but I didn’t find them,” Cole said, “so it’s not a big deal.”

  “It is when you promised you wouldn’t go without us,” Eva said.

  “That is pretty weak, my friend,” Brady said.

  “I’m sorry, okay! I messed up, I know I did,” Cole said. “But what I was doing, you wouldn’t have made it.” Not over the fence, and not against that creature.

  “I made it through the whole Scott thing,” Eva said.

  Cole thrust his hands out, and turned them palm-up. The blackened crosshatch pattern from the electric fence was still prominent over his scars.

  “Holy shit,” Brady said.

  “What’s this?” Michael said.

  Eva traced one of the black lines with her finger.

  “I went to the research facility,” Cole said. “Like I said, you wouldn’t have made it.”

  “Wait, this is from the electric fence? You climbed it?” Brady asked.

  “Kind of,” Cole said, and hoped that they couldn’t tell he’d left out information. They were usually very good at detecting when Cole was lying. But he had kind of climb the fence. Just after he’d jumped over it, and after that thing had chased him. Neither Eva nor Brady had brought up Cole’s powers since they’d witnessed them—Brady seeing Cole crush a doorknob, and Eva seeing how Cole had healed from the knife wound—probably respecting the fact that he told them he couldn’t say anything about his abilities, and he didn’t want to give them something else to not bring up.

  “How did you make it, never mind?” Eva asked.

  Cole closed his eyes a moment and silently cursed himself. Not dying from a high voltage electric fence probably fell under powers, too.

  “I guess that’s why I ended up on the front steps of Brady’s house,” Cole said, praying they’d buy his answer and not keep grilling him. It was three on one, and the allure of Michael not hating him was wearing thin fast.

  “But, remember that guy who touched that fence a while back, just touched it, and died?” Brady said to Eva and Michael, who both nodded.

  “Not everybody dies when they’re electrocuted, okay?!”

  “You don’t, anyway,” Michael said.

  Cole opened his mouth to respond, but—

  “Mr. Cole Harper!” Choch shouted, followed by a whistle, from across the gym.

  “What?!” Cole shouted at Choch.

  Choch checked his watch, tapping on it for good measure. “Do you realize how late you are?”

  Cole didn’t even look at his phone or the clock. He just said, “Yes.”

  “Class is more than half over, young man! Man-makers. Now!” Choch shouted angrily.

  “No!” Cole shouted back.

  Choch walked to the centre of the court, stomping all the way. “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘no,’ do you need to get your ears checked!?”

  All the kids in the gym gasped. Cole heard Pam snort, trying to stop herself from laughing.

  “Do you want detention, too?” Choch asked.

  “You’re not even a teacher, Mr. Chochinov. I don’t give a shit what you ask me to do here!”

  “Man-makers, Harper!”

  “Screw you!”

  Well at least you didn’t swear, I’ll give you that. But, CB, first, I told you this would happen, and second, I’m trying to help you.

  “I don’t care!” Cole responded out loud to Choch’s psychic explanation. “I’m not having the best morning, okay? Just back off!”

  “You get to that line this instant, son.” Choch pointed to the baseline, where the man-makers were to start. He blew his whistle again.

  But Cole wheeled around, walked to the gym doors, and pushed them open so hard he was surprised they didn’t break off their hinges.

  Before leaving, he shouted, “And it’s person-makers! Feminist my ass!”

  “Hey!”

  Cole stopped to let Pam catch up. He’d already ignored a text from Eva, another from Brady, and a couple of choice thoughts from Mr. Chochinov, but he wasn’t annoyed at Pam. Things had ended up going well last night, after he’d actually started talking. He thought they had, anyway, until the walk home, when he’d gone quiet again. But it was hard for Cole to separate walking Pam home from walking Alex home, especially since Pam and Alex had been best friends. They’d stood on Pam’s front step for a long time in complete, awkward silence. Cole was lost in thought, thinking about Alex kissing him on the cheek, and how she’d been killed probably minutes after the kiss. Cole was unreasonably worried that the same might happen to Pam. So, he didn’t leave her and he also didn’t say anything until she’d finally opened the front door and said, “Okay…so I’m going to go.”

  “See ya,” he’d said.

  “Hey,” he said now, after Pam had caught up.

  “Thought I’d double down on some post-dinner awkwardness,” she said.

  “Sorry about…” Cole’s silence filled in the gap.

  “Hey, what did we say about sorrys, Harper?”

  “Enough sorrys,” he said, repeating Pam’s advice from the gym yesterday.

  “Plus, you know, everybody needs a good awkward silence once in a while, right?”

  “I just didn’t know what to do,” Cole said.

  “Well, when in doubt, come on, tiger.” Pam lunged forward, grabbed Cole on either side of his head, and kissed him on the cheek. She released him like some televangelist healer. “There, now we can just be normal.”

  Cole felt at his cheek, at Pam’s intentionally sloppy kiss. He laughed. “Wow.”

  “See? Awkwardness averted,” Pam clapped her hands together once. “And now that that’s out of the way, can we talk about how that was epic. I’ve never seen anybody talk to Mr. Chochinov, or any teacher, like that before.”

  “It was kind of stupid,” Cole said. “It was just that, you know, people were looking at me weird because of the mall—”

  “I called it.”

  “—you called it, and then my friends were bugging me. Cho…Mr. Chochinov was the victim of circumstance.”

  “If it means anything, I do not think you set the mall on fire,” she said. “I mean, you’re lit, but—”

  “Oh-my-God.”

  “Ha, right? I hate that word, but sometimes it’s too good not to use.”

  “If I’m lit, you just doused me with your saliva.” Cole wiped at his cheek again, and hoped that she’d get the joke.

  “Well played, Harper,” Pam nodded, and Cole felt relieved. “Anyway, you left kind of upset and I wanted you to know that the group text is pro-Cole suddenly. See? Fickle AF.”

  “Hashtag shitColedid, right? I’m always trending, one way or the other.”

  “Buddy,” Pam said, “you’re going viral.”

  14

  OUTSIDE IN

  THE FISH WAS NEARLY EMPTY. Victor sat in the back corner, alone. A couple sat across the room from him, their distance intentional. Cole had found a spot near the front door. He was working up the courage to talk to Victor, watching him huddle over his coffee as though for warmth. Maybe he wasn’t going to go back to the research facility yet, but Choch, avoiding the question about the creature, made Cole want to find out more. It had to be the same thing Victor had seen.

  Cole had a glass of water in front of him and a cup of peppermint tea. He had ordered breakfast and was waiting for it, sure that Rebecca hadn’t given it to him because she hated his guts. She was destined to be his server until the end of time, probably
as punishment from Choch. He’d tried to flag her down once to ask when his meal might come, but when she ignored him, he gave up. He didn’t want his food served with a side of spit.

  Cole waited to make eye contact with Victor, and then be like, “Oh, hey, why don’t I come sit with you? You can tell me stories about the shadow creature. It just so happens I saw it, too!” Where had Victor seen it? Near the research facility as well? What had it looked like to him? A boogeyman? Some black figure with red eyes? Were they all the same…thing? But Victor wasn’t looking up from his coffee.

  “Hey, space cadet, wanna move your elbows?” Rebecca had a plate of two eggs, toast, and bacon extended, wanting to put the food down, but Cole was leaning over the table.

  “Sorry.” Cole moved, clearing the way for Rebecca.

  She tossed the plate down and walked away.

  “You’re seriously a terrible server,” Cole said, now that she couldn’t spit in his food (if she hadn’t already).

  Cold food. He wasn’t about to ask her to heat it up. Jayney, Cole thought. A way better option.

  She didn’t show up.

  Jayney! Cole thought.

  Still no Jayne.

  “Jayne,” Cole said out loud.

  The couple on the opposite side of the room from Victor looked up. Cole nodded at them awkwardly, and smiled awkwardly. Victor did for a moment as well, too quick for Cole to catch it.

  “Hey, Coley.” Jayne materialized with a big smile on her face. This was the Jayne Cole knew and loved. He could feel her swing her legs back and forth. Every second or so, one of Cole’s legs would feel warm from her fiery foot.

  “Hey, Jayney.”

  “What’s up? You were thinkin’ loud!”

  “Oh,” Cole pushed his plate over towards Jayne, “I thought you could maybe warm this up for me.”

  Jayne’s flames grew brighter. “Could I!”

  “Sorry, I hate using you like that,” Cole said. “I hate when he uses you like that.”