Monsters

by David Alexander Robertson

  “I…” Cole started “…just call it a bonus.”

  Brady shook his head. “I can’t believe this.”

  “If Elder thinks you need to do this,” Eva said, “don’t you need to? I couldn’t deal with anything happening to you.”

  “Me neither,” Cole said.

  “You know who you are, B. Screw ‘em,” Eva said.

  “Why do I have to still love those assholes?” Brady asked himself, looking up at the sky, as though trying to temper his anger with the ribbons of light overhead. He threw his arms up in the air. “Alright, fine. Whatever.”

  Eva walked over to Brady first. No words were exchanged. She just took him in her arms, and gave him a bear hug. Then, she turned to Elder Mariah, leaned over, and kissed the Elder on the forehead.

  After Eva, Cole took his turn. He gave Brady a hug, too. They kept hugging while they talked.

  “Does this mean I can stay here?” Cole joked, kind of.

  Brady laughed into Cole’s shoulder. “No.”

  “Okay.” Cole squeezed Brady, but didn’t let go. He asked, “Can I at least raid your closet?”

  Brady laughed again. “Oh my Gosh, Cole. Yes, you can borrow my clothes.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Figure yourself out, okay?”

  “I will, I promise. I’m sorry, Brady.”

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. If you came here to fix things, then that means stuff was going bad before you got here, and that means it’s not your fault.” Brady put both hands on Cole’s shoulders. “You can do this. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Cole leaned over to Elder Mariah. He put his hand on hers. Put his forehead against her forehead. “Elder Mariah,” he whispered. “I won’t let anything happen to you or Brady.”

  “I know.”

  He gave her a gentle hug, then backed away. Brady waved at them, smiled weakly, then walked behind Elder Mariah’s wheelchair. He pushed her towards their house to pack whatever they were going to bring. Once they were inside, Eva nudged Cole on the forearm.

  He turned to her. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she said. “What a night.”

  “Yeah, what a night,” he said.

  They stood together, looked at each other, trying to cast comforting looks, but they were unconvincing.

  “So,” she said, “you’re heading home now?”

  “I guess.” He checked the time. 8:57 p.m. “Can’t really do anything to avoid it now.”

  “I could walk you home,” she said. “You know, keep you safe. I’m kind of good at that, right?”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “What would you do without me?”

  Die. That’s what he would have done. Literally. She held his hand, playfully. She swung it back and forth, as though they were already walking together. She tilted her head towards his house, where his auntie and grandmother were waiting for him.

  “Come on,” she said.

  “You know what…” Cole looked around, at the night, and he thought about what was lurking in the shadows in Wounded Sky. He checked the time again. 8:58 p.m. He only had two minutes, but it didn’t matter.

  He could be late, for Eva. “I think I should walk you home instead.”

  19

  ALL OVER AGAIN

  COLE STOOD ON THE FRONT STEPS of his parents’ house, frozen in place, wishing he’d stayed at Eva’s when he’d dropped her off. If there were more rocks through the window, then there were more rocks through the window. He would’ve ducked. He would’ve been hit. Getting hit with rocks was better than this. His knees were buckling, his pulse was racing, and his muscles were shaking from exertion. He put his hand on the door to steady himself. He tried to breathe in slowly, but he couldn’t. His lungs were full already, and there was no room for air. He was blacking out. The darkness was coming.

  “Help.”

  “Cole.”

  He could feel a hand take his. Tears were running down his cheeks. Auntie Joan was standing in the doorway. Cole’s grandmother was standing behind his aunt. She looked sad for him, worried for him.

  “Let’s get you up.” She was strong. She led him inside, towards the kitchen. He was a little boy again. Wearing a yellow shirt and blue overalls. Two years old. He was running down the hallway. A monster was chasing him. He was too scared to look behind. He looked ahead, only ahead. He turned the corner into the kitchen. His mother was there, sitting on the chair, arms out. She saved him.

  His first memory.

  Auntie Joan brought him to the kitchen table. Dust exploded from the chair as he sat down. She went to the fridge. It groaned and wheezed, clinging to life, as she opened it. She took out a bottle of water. He could feel his grandmother behind him, her hands on his shoulders. Groceries were spread out on the kitchen counter. Bread. Peanut butter. Cereal. Auntie Joan came back with the water and handed it to Cole. He could hardly hang onto it. Water spilled out because his hand was trembling.

  “Where are they?” Auntie Joan said as she felt at his pockets. She found what she was looking for. She curled her fingers inside his pocket, and pried out the pill bottle. She took out two pills. Cole counted them as he kept trying to take deep breaths, but they were shallow. One, two. She placed the pills into his free hand and told him to swallow them. He hadn’t taken a pill in days. Something felt wrong about it.

  “Take them,” she said.

  She put her hand under his, and moved his hand towards his mouth. He tried to stop her. “I don’t…” he started to say, but said nothing else. He was weak.

  “You’re having a panic attack.” She took the pills from his palm, and placed them into his mouth herself, then guided the water bottle to his lips. He could feel some of the water spill against his pants. He could feel the pills dissolve on his tongue as cold water seeped into his mouth.

  He swallowed.

  “There,” she said.

  His grandmother squeezed his shoulders. “It’s okay, Nósisim.”

  “Give it a minute.” Auntie Joan closed the pill bottle, shoved it back into his pocket.

  “Twenty-six minutes,” he said.

  “What?” she asked.

  “It takes twenty-six minutes,” he repeated.

  “Give it twenty-six minutes,” his grandmother said behind him.

  The act of taking the medication helped to calm him—at least enough so that he could breathe, and as he breathed a bit deeper this, too, set him more at ease. He could only feel so much calm, however, with his auntie and grandmother staring at him. He knew they were trying to help, but still, the last thing he ever wanted during a panic attack were people breathing down his neck, loved ones or not. He needed to be alone, in the dark, and with music. “I want to lie down.”

  Auntie Joan looked at her mother and then nodded quickly.

  “Sure,” she said. “Of course.”

  Cole pushed himself to his feet. His auntie grabbed his forearm to help him, but he was already almost standing.

  “Do you need—” she said as Cole started to walk out of the kitchen using the wall, the door frame, whatever he could get his hands on for balance.

  “No, I’m good.” He wasn’t. Not really. Not yet. But he needed his Auntie Joan—God love her—to leave him be. His knees were tenuously supporting his weight. He kept telling himself that he was almost there. Twenty more steps, Cole. Come on. Nineteen, let’s go. And eventually, he got to his bedroom.

  If it wasn’t for the early work of the pills his auntie had stuck in his mouth, being there might’ve made his panic worse. Everything in the house would have. Clear memories, like they happened yesterday, came to him. The kitchen smelled of the food his mother and father used to make him. Oatmeal for breakfast. A bowl of rice and ground beef, mixed together with ketchup, and vegetables on the side for supper. Down the hallway, with each step, his dad, carrying him from the bathroom to the bedroom, wrapped up in a towel, making him fly through the air with spaceship sounds. In his bedroom, it was the nigh
t his mother told him that his father died. The clearest of all memories, and the one from this house that had stayed with him more than any others. Hiding under the comforter, reading comics. Her careful steps, unsure of what the future would be like after she told him. The smell of her as he buried his face into her shoulder.

  Lilacs. Laundry.

  Fifteen minutes had passed by the time Cole made his way across the bedroom, and to his bed. He pulled the comforter from his bed, and shook the dust off. He put the comforter back onto his bed the same way his mother used to after she’d returned from the mall with clean laundry. He lifted it up in the air, where it floated for a moment, like a feather. He let it fall, slowly, until it wrapped itself around the bed. He lay down on top of the comforter, propped his head up onto the pillow, stuck earbuds in his ears, and played his go-to music when he needed to get through an attack. For Emma, Forever Ago.

  That’s where he was. Forever ago. Stuck there now, counting down the minutes until his brain would allow him to just be there, just exist there, without the fear, the pain, the panic. Seven minutes to go. The length of two songs. Breathe. Just breathe. He closed his eyes. He listened to the music and moved his lips as though he were singing. Finally, twenty-eight minutes after his auntie had given him the pills, he slipped into sleep.

  Cole heard distant shouting. He had been having this nightmare over the last decade. Soon the shouting would turn to screams of terror and desperation. Screams from children. He’d be running—running from the banks of Silk River towards the screams—and how odd that amid those screams of horror, the horizon would look so beautiful. A sunset. The evening sky painted liberally with oranges and yellows and reds. He’d be running, and then he would stop in front of the school and see it burning.

  “No,” Cole whispered, his eyes closed.

  He buried his face into his pillow and pushed the sides of the pillow into his ears. There was muffled shouting. Not terror, maybe, but Cole heard desperation. And he wasn’t sitting by the banks of Silk River. Gradually, he realized that he was awake in bed—that he wasn’t dreaming. Like so many times in the last two weeks, the nightmare was real.

  The pills. They made him feel disoriented—level, somewhere close to calm, but detached. It was a wonder that he’d woken up at all. He checked the time quickly. 2:07 a.m. He sat up in bed, and looked out the window, to see why people were shouting. Something was happening. He’d failed. Again. He slept through it. There’d be more blood on his hands. He couldn’t see anybody out the window, but the waking nightmare continued. The nighttime horizon was beautiful again. Like a sunset, painted in oranges and yellows and reds.

  “No!”

  Not again. Not now. Cole charged out of bed, out of his bedroom, out of the house, and ran faster when he got outside. No, no, no, he kept thinking as he pushed his legs to go faster than they’d ever gone before. The gravel pathways that weaved their way through the community were like rivers of brown water flowing beneath Cole’s feet. The trees that lined the pathways blurred like scenery outside a car window on the highway. The sting of Wounded Sky’s autumn breeze whipped against Cole’s face.

  No.

  He ran towards the horizon, tears streaming from his eyes. His arms working furiously. His legs pushing, pushing…towards the pretty colours, and the horror. The shouting was behind him now. Still coming, but not as fast as he was. Not nearly.

  The Fish. Cole slid to a stop in front of the diner. The heat enveloped his body and started to burn his skin. The whole building was up in flames.

  “No!” Cole shouted.

  He listened for screams, for somebody trapped inside. All he heard was the fire. Crackling. Roaring. Somebody could still be inside. Passed out from smoke inhalation. Dying. Burning. He pictured his friends, his teachers, his mother, in the gym, at the school, ten years ago. Dying. Burning. There was a time when they stopped screaming, too.

  Cole didn’t wait a second longer. He ran into the building, through the flames, through the smoke. He ran through the diner, behind the counter, into the kitchen, squinting through tears, from pain and smoke, looking for bodies. Within moments, he was certain that there weren’t any. Within moments, his clothes and skin were burning. He found his way back to the front doors, or where the front doors used to be, and ran outside. He collapsed on the sidewalk leading up to the diner. He was coughing. Crying. He clawed at the ground and pulled himself farther away. When he’d inched far enough onto the main path, which forked off to the Fish and the X, he pulled himself up to his feet and stood there watching the diner burn. There was nothing else he could do. Smoke rose from his own body, and into the night sky.

  “Harper!”

  Tristan was at the front of a gathering crowd of Wounded Sky community members just now arriving. Cole looked across the sea of faces, all lit in warm colours by the relentless flames. Some were staring at the burning building in disbelief. More were staring at Cole. Cole knew the look on their faces. It was the clinic all over again. Everybody thinking—knowing—that he had done it. That he had murdered people. That he had brought the sickness to the community. That he had set the Fish on fire. He started to back away as Tristan kept walking towards him.

  “I didn’t…” Cole raised his arms, extending them towards Tristan. His skin was red, burned, still steaming. “I was trying to…”

  “Trying to what? Get back at everybody for turning on you?”

  “I’m not getting back at anybody, Tristan. I saw the fire out my window, I…”

  “And you got here that fast?” He was standing in front of Cole, and shoved his finger into Cole’s chest.

  “I ran…” Cole said weakly.

  “You ran, from your house to here, that fast?” Tristan looked around. “We all ran, Harper. You were already here. Already…” Tristan grabbed at Cole’s shirt, burned and ragged “…like this. How?”

  “He did it!” somebody shouted from the crowd.

  “I…stop…stop moving.” Tristan was spinning. The crowd was spinning. The fire. Everything.

  “I’m not moving. I’m standing right here. Be a man.”

  “Stop…” Cole backed away again. He stumbled and fell backwards, bracing himself with his arms. He felt one of his forearms snap. But that pain didn’t matter. The real pain was around him, the sea of faces closing in on him, looking at him. Shouting at him. Again.

  Cole got to his feet. Tristan shoved him with both hands, and Cole staggered back again. This time, he turned around and used the momentum to propel himself away. From Tristan. From the crowd. From the fire. He was running again. Running away. Running home.

  20

  DISCOVERY

  COLE RAN INTO HIS HOUSE AND LOCKED THE DOOR. He rushed past his auntie and grandmother into his bedroom. He slammed the door, shoved a desk in front of it, and went to bed. But Cole couldn’t fall back asleep. He was sitting up, back against the wall, listening. Listening for the mob. Listening to his auntie and grandmother whispering in the hallway. Listening to them pace in front of his bedroom door. Listening to the doorknob jingle every few minutes. Listening to the repeated attempts to talk to him. Attempts that he ignored.

  Cole heard footsteps approaching from across the yard, and reaching the front door.

  Knock, knock.

  He heard voices. Lauren’s. Jerry’s.

  “Constables?” he heard his auntie say.

  “Can we come in?” he heard Lauren ask.

  They were standing behind the screen door. It creaked open. Lauren and Jerry walked inside and stood in the hallway.

  “What’s going on?” his grandmother asked.

  “The Fish burned down,” Jerry said.

  Cole got up from his bed, walked to his bedroom door, and moved the desk out of the way. He stood there at the door and waited.

  “What?” his auntie said.

  “That’s what all the commotion’s about,” Jerry said.

  “We need to talk to Cole,” Lauren said.

  His auntie and gr
andmother didn’t say anything for a few seconds. They were probably thinking about how Cole had ran out of the house, and then, soon after, ran back inside.

  “Why?” his auntie finally asked.

  “Because he’s a suspect,” Jerry said.

  “He was there before anybody else,” Lauren said.

  “Says who?” his grandmother asked.

  “Says everybody,” Jerry said, “alright?”

  Footsteps were coming towards his bedroom door. Cole backed away, as though he’d been shoved by Tristan again. But now, there was nowhere to run. The door opened.

  “Cole, the constables—” his auntie started.

  “I know,” Cole said.

  “Of course you do, you little pyro,” Jerry said.

  “Jerry,” Lauren said.

  “We got you dead-to-rights this time, boy,” Jerry said.

  “I only went there because I saw it was burning, too. I wanted to help,” Cole said.

  “You and your helping. Look where it’s gotten us,” Jerry said.

  “It got us down one murderer, that’s where,” Lauren said.

  “You can’t prove anything,” Cole said.

  Jerry laughed. “Look at you, are you kidding me? Your clothes are all burnt, your skin’s all red…”

  “I went inside to see if anybody was trapped inside,” Cole pleaded.

  “…to see if you’d killed anybody trying to send a message, more like,” Jerry said.

  “Oh, what message would that be?” Cole’s auntie piped in. “Why would my nephew burn down the Fish after he’d found a killer? Saved people?”

  “And after the community had just honoured him,” his grandmother said.

  Jerry ignored Cole’s grandmother and auntie. “His arm’s hurt just like people said. I mean, come on. Nobody’s blind here, kid.”

  “Tristan did this,” Cole lifted his arm, which now only looked swollen a bit.

  Jerry shook his head. “Doesn’t matter what you say now, anyway. Doesn’t matter if the whole damn community saw you standing there all burned up from what you did.” He took a plastic evidence bag out from behind his back. Cole recognized the toque he’d purchased at the mall. Black. Native Pride. “Because we got this, too. Not burned. Right outside the diner.”