Monsters

by David Alexander Robertson

  “Was it?” his grandmother said.

  “Reynold McCabe, wasn’t it?”

  Cole’s heart exploded. Thundered. He rubbed instant cold sweat from his forehead with trembling fingers.

  “I think so.”

  “You…you’re s-sure? You sw-swear.” Cole’s face felt like it couldn’t move.

  “Positive, right?” Auntie Joan asked his grandmother.

  “Yes, I remember seeing them around back then. They had that girl together. What was her name again?”

  “Lucy,” Cole breathed.

  “That’s it,” Auntie Joan said.

  “Cole,” his grandmother said, “are you feeling okay?”

  Cole braced himself. He placed his hands on the table and pushed himself up from his chair. He stumbled backwards. Auntie Joan leapt forward and took his forearm, but he pulled away.

  “I have to…” Cole started “I have to…I have to…”

  He willed his legs to move forward, one at a time, until he collapsed out of the kitchen, against the hallway wall. Pushed himself forward toward the front door, slid his shoulder against the wall on the way for support. Pictures of Donald crashed against the floor.

  “Cole! It’s getting late and you are not going out!” Auntie Joan followed after him.

  “I h-have to go!” Cole fumbled to open the door. His fingers couldn’t grip the doorknob. He used both hands, and tried to turn the knob.

  “Nósisim, lay down. Rest.”

  “No!” He pulled the door open. The doorknob went flying and punctured a hole in the wall. He fell forward through the screen door, then outside.

  “Come back here, Cole Harper!”

  Cole didn’t respond. He kept falling forward, and used the motion as momentum to carry him farther and farther away from the house.

  “That fu…that shit…”

  Cole was hyperventilating. He could hardly see through his tears. The world was distorted. He could hear his auntie and grandmother calling after him, but their voices were like his vision, getting softer as the space between them grew.

  And he didn’t need vision.

  He didn’t need medication.

  He didn’t need their voices.

  He only needed one thing: to get to Reynold’s house.

  26

  FALLOUT

  REYNOLD MCCABE LIVED AT THE FAR EDGE OF TOWN. Cole had to force his way through the dispersing crowd leaving the debate at the community hall. He first saw them from a distance. He almost turned back, but he pushed himself onward—head down, heart racing, sweat pouring, and his body forever threatening to shut down in a sea of black spots that were as crowded in his vision as the debate-goers.

  “Cole Harper! On your way to burn the hall now?!”

  Keep going. Don’t look up. Don’t stop.

  “Keep running right the hell out of Wounded Sky, city!”

  Head down. Breathe.

  Somebody shouldered him and he fell hard against the ground.

  He clawed forward, planting his scarred palms into the dirt and gravel, and got up. Ignore them. Go. Get there.

  “Cole!”

  Footsteps followed behind him. They closed in. He didn’t look back. One leg in front, then the other. No giving up.

  “Harper! Stop!”

  Pam? She grabbed his hand. Through his numbness he could feel her fingers curl over his skin. He could feel her pull backwards, keeping him from his destination. He yanked his hand out of hers and kept moving forward.

  She grabbed his hand again.

  “Come on!”

  Cole pulled back. Could she feel it? Could she feel the sweaty palms? Through his skin, with her soft fingertips, could she feel his heart race? He could feel it throughout his body, he could see the thousand tiny blood vessels in his eyes pulse through his vision, through the crowd, through the black spots. He stopped, let her turn him around. She looked scared, confused. Her eyebrows caved in, her mouth opened slightly.

  “Wh-what is it, P-Pam?”

  Pam put her hand against Cole’s forehead and pulled it back like she’d touched an oven element.

  “Holy shit, are you okay? This is like when I saw you in the hallway times ten,” she said.

  “But I’m running. I can run. I don’t need your help,” he said.

  “You don’t need my—okay, sure. You’re not yourself, that’s fine.”

  “I need t-to go, okay? I just need to g-go.”

  “You needed my help this morning, remember? You needed more than my help.” She touched her cheek, where he’d kissed her. He remembered. He could feel her cheek against his lips. He could feel it through the numbness. He needed her. But at what cost? To be like Donald? He could feel Eva’s breath against his lips. So close. So achingly close.

  “I’m not my father!”

  He shouted at her, but it wasn’t at her. It was at Donald, wherever he was. He looked up, to the sky, to the northern lights. He imagined a ribbon up there was him. Blue. Cold. Numb.

  “Cole…”

  Pam took his hand again and squeezed it.

  He looked down. Saw her hand clutching his. Their fingers mixed together. Her thumb rubbing the outside of his hand, trying to comfort him. Her perfect, olive skin. She didn’t care what his hand felt like. She didn’t care that he was cold, that he was sweating, that he was who he was. But— “I’ll hurt you.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll hurt you, like he hurt her…”

  “What are you talking about? Hurt me? What are you talking about, Harper?”

  She moved forward, arms outstretched. Moved to hold him, to squeeze him, squeeze the panic out of him. Out of who he was.

  “No.” He backed away. “You can’t.”

  How to stop her. How to keep her away from him. He thought of Reynold. He thought of Vikki. He thought of Donald. How to save her? From him.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  She came forward again. This time slower, tentatively, her body echoing the confusion on her face.

  “I love Eva,” he cried. “Okay?”

  She stopped.

  “I’ll hurt you,” he said. “Don’t let me hurt you.”

  She backed away now. She shook her head. A tear fell from her eye, like she’d shook it out. They stared at each other. He could feel tears fall from his own eyes. Faint now, faint and leave here. Wake up somewhere else. Not here. Not now.

  “You hurt me already,” she whispered.

  “Pam…”

  But she was already gone. Running away from him, from the mess that was Cole.

  Compared to most housing in the area, Reynold McCabe’s house was a mansion; a rare two-story structure that appeared even bigger with its attached garage. Whenever Reynold desired he could drive around in his big truck, even though everything was within walking distance. And it wasn’t quite within the boundaries of Wounded Sky First Nation proper, either, as though that house and that truck and that man were too good for the community. Cole stopped on the path in front of the house and fell to his knees, exhausted.

  On his hands and knees, trying desperately to catch his breath, to gather strength, Cole looked up. Reynold’s house was surrounded by security, a guard at the front door, at the side door, and probably at the back door, too. A roaming guard paced back and forth from one end of the house to the other. All the guards were dressed in black, and all of them had handguns on their belts. He had come this far for nothing.

  “Shit.” Even if he weren’t in the state he was in right now, he didn’t think he could get inside, close enough to confront Reynold, or to tear through the place to see what he could find, anything that would connect Reynold to Donald and Vikki’s murder. He’d be asking for a gunshot wound, an end to everything. And while that may have been a relief for Cole, dying so foolishly would be making a decision for everybody else in Wounded Sky.

  “I’m not like you,” Cole said to an absent Donald. He wasn’t selfish like Donald, to do what he’d done, to impact his
son’s life, his family’s, in exchange for Vikki. How was she worth giving up so much? His life? No, he wasn’t like Donald in any way.

  Cole stood up, and managed to stay up. Shaking knees. Trembling body. Racing heart. He took out his pills and put two in his mouth. Tonight wasn’t the night. But the guards would be there tomorrow, too, and the next day. Cole had to find another way in. He scanned the area, as though the answer was there, as though it would walk right past him. And then he looked at the house, at the one light that was on: a room on the second floor. A silhouette crossed the window, behind the curtains. It wasn’t Reynold. It wasn’t round enough.

  And the idea came to him, came right through his mind, like a silhouette moving behind a curtain.

  “Lucy.”

  Buzz.

  Students were leaving classes. Cole had stood at the end of a row of lockers, close to the classroom, for a full hour. He’d stood there, and stared at the floor, and the ceiling, and the wall, counting tiles and speckles and bricks, waiting for this moment. In anticipation of enduring more abuse, Cole had slipped a pill into his mouth twenty-six minutes ago. The meds were now built up in his system. If he stopped taking them, he was asking for the panic attack to end all panic attacks. When he saw Lucy walking past, he called to her. She stopped, and jokingly acted as though she wasn’t sure whether he’d meant her or not, though he’d said her name.

  Cole did his best to play it cool, not act awkward. “Yes you,” he said.

  “You know what?” she walked up to him, “I’ve got an even better idea of what a day in the life of Cole Harper might feel like now.”

  “No, you really don’t.” Cole said. “How could you, aside from…” Cole tried not to explode “…your dad being your dad.” Your dad being a murdering sack of shit.

  “Not aside from, because of my dad being my dad,” Lucy said. “Shit went next level after last night, boy.”

  “Last night…” Cole pictured himself running against the tide of community members leaving the debate “…right. How’d that go?”

  “Cole, aren’t you on the group text? It’s the Twitter of Wounded Sky.”

  “No, and I’ve been advised to stay off it.”

  “Actually that’s a damn good call, most of the crap on there’s about you anyway. No, spoiler alert: dad got killed. Big time. No contest.”

  “That doesn’t always translate into a loss, though.”

  “Here it does. Here it does when you’re running against a Crate. Not only are they fricking popular but, you know, they’ve got the sympathy vote, too.”

  “I guess.”

  “Moral of the story,” Lucy leaned into two passing students, “our fellow classmates are talking shit today.” She shouted those last three words to their faces. “Anyway, what did you want? You called me over, remember?”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore.” Cole had moved on. Already thinking of another way into Reynold’s house.

  “You’re so depressing, look at you.” Lucy grabbed both of his shoulders and tried to straighten them out. “Just tell me anyway, I’m curious now.”

  “I thought I could come over and help plan the victory party for Sunday, that’s all.”

  Lucy scrunched her brow and tapped at her lips, all while staring at Cole. “You want to help plan a party for the guy who knocked you the hell out?”

  “Maybe I just wanted to hang out with you.” How good a liar could he be? The pills helped here. They kept him calm enough.

  “Having the town pariah over to hang out, hey?” Lucy didn’t give it more than a second’s thought. “Yeah, I’m down. We can plot our revenge.”

  “I was thinking more like watch a movie?”

  Lucy rolled her eyes. “There’s never been a more likable pariah, that I can tell you. Sure, no plotting, just a movie and chips and Coke, like good little angels. Do we need a chaperone, or…”

  Cole forced a mostly believable chuckle. “Does tonight work?”

  When Cole got back to his parents’ house, his auntie and his grandmother were out, and he was glad for it. He ate an uninspired lunch just to get something into his stomach—soda crackers with peanut butter spread clumsily on them, and an apple—then went directly to his bedroom and closed the door. There was nothing to do but wait until the evening. At 7:00 p.m. he’d go to Lucy’s place, then figure out a way to search through Reynold’s house and find something that would give him answers.

  Lying in bed was cathartic. He enjoyed being there, staring at the blank ceiling and trying to match his thoughts to it. He stuck his earbuds in and turned on some music. OK Computer. “Let down and hanging around.” Never down lower, maybe, but still here. He had to be here. Hanging around. His eyelids were heavy. Each time he blinked they were heavier. “One day I am going to grow wings.” He closed his eyes.

  He wasn’t sure when he woke up. He heard his phone chime. A message. He rolled over onto his side and checked his messages.

  EVA: You avoided me all day.

  Cole propped himself up on his elbow and two-thumb typed a response.

  COLE: I avoided everybody.

  EVA: Mike’s pissed you skipped practice.

  COLE: That would’ve gone well.

  EVA: Still…

  COLE: Did he say anything about throwing rocks?

  EVA: Says he didn’t.

  COLE: Can you tell when he’s lying or only me?

  EVA: I just want to get it, Cole. I don’t get it. I don’t get anything.

  Cole typed and deleted several responses. He wondered what she was thinking on the other end of the line, wherever she was, whatever she was doing. She would have seen the three dots on her screen for a long time. She would have thought he was writing some long, drawn-out message.

  COLE: I said I just need to be alone. Would you want to be around people, if you were me?

  Then he got a taste of his own medicine. Fair enough.

  Three dots from Hell.

  EVA: I just thought you should know about Anna Crate, if you haven’t heard.

  COLE: What.

  EVA: She dropped out.

  COLE: What? Why?

  EVA: Later, Cole.

  27

  NO SURPRISES

  COLE ARRIVED AT REYNOLD MCCABE’S HOUSE after pausing several yards away to gather some courage and swallow a pill. He’d felt the meds wearing off when he’d left the house, after he got into an argument with his auntie about where he was going. Cole had just left. She’d shouted after him. He cursed himself that he’d not taken his pill at the house rather than now. It wouldn’t do any good for his nerves. It wouldn’t help him confront the security guard at Reynold’s front door. The guard had a sneer on his face and when he saw Cole, his hand fell instinctively to his gun.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” the guard asked, and put a hand on Cole’s chest.

  “Inside?” Cole tried to hide the fact that his entire body was shaking.

  “Nobody goes inside.”

  Cole tried to bravely push his way towards the door. But the guard stepped directly in front of him. The other guards took notice, made their way over, and Cole took a step back.

  “I have a date with Lucy.”

  “Nice try.”

  “I do! Seriously, go and ask.”

  The guard looked at one of his colleagues who’d joined them. That one, a superior, gave the guard standing in front of Cole a nod towards the house.

  “Hang on.” The guard walked over to the front door, opened it, and went inside. The other two guards stood flanking Cole with their hands on their guns, too.

  “What do you think I’m going to do that you’re ready to draw your guns?” he asked.

  The guards didn’t say anything. Cole didn’t recognize any of them. It was dark, and they were dressed in black, complete with black hats and sunglasses. Moments later, the first guard came out of the house. He paused at the steps, reluctant, and then he waved Cole up to the front door. Cole gave the two guards flanking him a shrug, an
d then approached the house.

  “You do anything I don’t like…” The guard got right into Cole’s face, nose to nose.

  “You’ll shoot me?”

  “It won’t be pretty, let’s just say that.”

  Cole motioned for the guard to move. The guard took a moment, his hand tensed over his firearm, and then he stepped to one side.

  “Hello?” Cole stood in the entryway and looked around. From his vantage point, he could see Reynold wasn’t suffering financially. The floors were shiny hardwood, and the banister up to the second floor looked like it belonged in some Victorian house. There was fresh paint with vibrant colours on the walls. The kitchen cupboards had see-through doors, and lights inside that made the glasses glisten. Cole didn’t expect that many people came into the house. Living like this, when others in the community had trouble affording healthy food, wouldn’t look too good. Still, his house was visible from the outside for anybody to see. Maybe people in Wounded Sky thought that since he was successful, he could make the community successful.

  Cole slipped his shoes off and put them to the side, against the wall. He took a few steps into the hallway and called out again. “Lucy?”

  “In here!”

  He followed the sound of her voice to the living room. The focal point of the room was a huge television. For one fleeting moment, Cole imagined watching some of his favourite movies on it, but stopped himself. Don’t envy this douchebag. Lucy was sitting on the couch, facing the television screen. There was a bowl of ripple chips on the coffee table in front of the couch, and two glasses filled with Coke and ice.

  Cole laughed. “Chips and pop.”

  “Yeah but, my dad’s out, so no chaperone.”

  “Well there’s a bunch of armed chaperones outside, so…” Cole walked around the couch and sat down beside her.

  Lucy picked up the remote control, and started to scroll through shows. “What’s your pleasure? Comedy? Romance? Romantic comedy?”

  “I like anything.”

  “You like anything,” Lucy repeated with an exhausted tone.

  “Okay, romantic comedy.”

  “Better.”

  “But, you know, I guess we could actually plan for a victory party now. Celebration’s back on, from what I’ve heard.”