Monster Empire

by Michael-Scott Earle

  I spent the day down by the river picking out big flat stones for the barn floor while Nika swung in the hammock with the baby. My wagon was nearly to capacity by what I called first noon, and I took a break under the shade of a big oak and ate lunch with my wife and child.

  “Can he eat adult food?” I asked after Nika fed him a piece of bread.

  “Of course, silly. Goblins can eat regular food as soon as they’re born.”

  “Really?” I said. “That’s crazy.”

  “And they can walk,” Nika said, and then she set the baby down on his feet.

  “Wow!” I gasped as his wobbly little legs held up his weight.

  The baby gripped Nika’s fingers like ski poles and cooed at me with his big brown eyes wide with excitement. The puppies yipped and danced around us as Nika let go, and to my further amazement, the baby staggered five steps toward me.

  “You can do it, little buddy!” I laughed as I held out my arms, and he walked the rest of the way into my hands.

  “You two are just tooooooo cute!” Nika giggled.

  “I can’t believe that he can already walk. That’s amazing.”

  “Of course he can,” Nika said. “Goblin babies need to be able to escape predators. They need to be strong and clever if they are to survive the underdark. How long does it take your Earth babies to learn to walk?”

  “Like nine months to a year,” I said, a little embarrassed.

  “What?” she asked, truly shocked. “How do they escape predators?”

  “Uh, we don’t really have predators on Earth, not where I come from, anyway.”

  “Earth humans have it too easy,” she said as she shook her head, exasperated. “Nine months to a year to walk? I’ve never heard of a creature that takes so long. I suppose that next you will tell me human babies can’t talk for a long time either.”

  “One or two years,” I admitted.

  “Oh, my! Earth humans seem very weak and not very clever, or maybe their fathers were not as impressive as you, Ken Jewell. Our baby will be speaking in a few days, and he will grow strong very quickly. You will see. He will make you so proud.”

  “Well, I guess that will save on diapers,” I joked.

  “What are diapers?” she asked.

  “Uh, they’re like clothes that you put on the baby like pants to catch their poop and pee,” I explained.

  “Catch their poop and pee?” she asked and scrunched up her nose. “Why would you want to catch it? Do you use it to fertilize your mushrooms?”

  A laugh escaped me, and I knew Nika was in for another surprise.

  “Human babies can’t hold it or use a poop chute until they’re like a year and a half to two years old. Hell, I once dated a girl who was nineteen who still pissed the bed sometimes. Of course, she was drunk when she did it.”

  “Oh my goodness, Ken Jewell, please tell me no more about Earth babies. What wild little beasts they sound like, and far too much work. Two years to learn not to pee on yourself? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

  I could only shrug.

  “Well, the baby already knows to go poop and pee in the outhouse. I showed him this morning,” she said.

  “Of course you did,” I chuckled.

  “Why don’t you take him with you while you work for the day?” Nika suggested.

  “I don’t know,” I said, but the baby must have thought it was a great idea, since he jumped out of my arms and ran toward the door. I grimaced when he slammed into it, but then he got up, glanced back at me, and let out the cutest laugh I had ever heard.

  “You see? He wants to go with his dadda,” Nika said with a musical giggle in her voice.

  “Dadda!” the baby demanded.

  “Holy shit, did he just call me dadda?” I asked my wife.

  “Of course he did, silly. That’s your name. Dadda Ken Jewell, patriarch of clan Jewell,” Nika said with pride.

  “Look,” I started, “I’m not sure he can really help me with any of the work--”

  “Bah!” Nika said as she stuck her tongue out. “Children are supposed to help their parents. That is why you must have lots of babies with lots of different monster women. All of them will help you build your empire. Bring our baby with you. He’s small now, but he will help you. You’ll see. Please take him, Ken Jewell. He wants to watch you work. He loves you.”

  “Alright,” I said as I looked at the green-skinned baby. “I’ll bring him along.”

  “Have fun, boys!” Nika called behind us as we exited the house. “I’ll bring lunch down at second noon.”

  I tried to pick up the baby to carry him down the hill, but he squirmed out of my grasp and laughed his little green ass off as he ran down the hill with the puppies in tow. I laughed with him, but then realized that he was headed straight for the river.

  “Hey, Baby, stop!” I yelled as I sprinted after him.

  The baby just laughed and continued running.

  And then he was on the shore of the river.

  “Stop!” I screamed in horror as the baby disappeared over the side of the riverbank.

  I ran to the water and dove in after him in a frantic attempt to save his life, but to my surprise, he knew how to swim.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” I said as I treaded water and watched him swim circles around me.

  “Dadda!” he screeched and laughed as he swam.

  “I see you,” I said. “You’re doing great, look at you!”

  “Dadda! Dadda!” he said excitedly as he splashed in the water.

  I laughed with him, and then I picked him up and carried him to the shore.

  We spent the afternoon on the other side of the river. I cut down lumber for the barn while the baby played with the puppies. They followed him everywhere he went and yipped happily when he figured out that they liked to retrieve the sticks that he threw into the river.

  When second noon rolled around, the sky quickly became overcast, and I guessed that we would finally get some rain.

  “Nika!” I yelled up to the house. “Nika! Come quick!”

  Thunder rumbled in the sky and I glanced at the baby as he sat on the bank.

  He looked up at the sky and pointed, saying “Dadda!”

  “It's only thunder, little dude,” I assured him. “It’s alright.”

  Nika came running down the hill and crossed the bridge.

  “What is it, Ken Jewell?” she asked as she eyed the sky warily. “It sounds like the holy twins are doing battle.”

  “It's a thunderstorm. It’s going to rain soon,” I told her, and a few moments after I said it the sky broke with a shatter of lightning and a heavy rumble of thunder.

  Then fat raindrops started to fall.

  Nika let out a delighted cheer and stripped out of her clothes. Then she picked up the baby and danced in the downpour. I watched my wife and child celebrate in the rain and couldn’t help but feel a bit lightheaded. Mother and child twirled and laughed, and the baby happily lapped at the water falling from the dark clouds with his little pink tongue.

  That night I told the baby a bedtime story, and Nika nestled in to hear it too. It wasn’t Doctor Suess, and I didn’t want to tell him the classic fairy tales, since monsters were usually the villains in human bedtime stories. So I picked a story that I loved.

  “The star destroyer slowly moved through space…” I began.

  By the time I got to the end, the baby was asleep, but he awoke with a start when Nika cheered the destruction of the Death Star. Then my wife nursed the baby back to sleep and made me promise to finish the story later.

  I happily agreed and went out onto the porch to watch the rain with a mug of beer. As I sat there enjoying the fine brewed ale, I thought back on my life on Earth and wondered if I would have ever found such happiness there. I had liked my life just fine, but I suppose it was because I hadn’t known just how good it could have been. I found that I didn’t miss technology at all. We had everything that we needed on the homestead.

  I didn
’t miss fast food either, or traffic, or long days spent in the Middle East getting shot at. I did miss my parents and siblings, and I wished that they could see Nika and my child, but the life of a soldier had kind of already removed me from their lives.

  Here, I had a new family, and it was a damn good one.

  Over the next few days, I laid the barn foundation and built the frame. The baby still hadn’t named himself like Nika said he would, but she ensured me that once he heard a word that he liked, he would let us know.

  Once the barn frame was up, I spent a day planing the planks for the walls and the roof. The baby insisted that he help, so I made him a little broom and told him to sweep up the shavings. He made more of a mess than anything, but it didn’t matter, since he looked like he was having a blast helping. He already seemed to understand most of what I said, even though he didn’t say anything but mamma and dadda yet, but it didn’t take a mind reader to know how he felt about things. When he was happy, he was very happy, and when he was pissed, he shook like a baby Hulk and pitched a fit.

  He grew incredibly fast, and a week after he was born, he was already the size of a human three-year-old. His muscles had really begun to fill out as well, and he also exhibited an incredible power that shocked even his mother.

  We had been lying in bed and getting pretty friendly. Nika wasn’t completely healed yet, but she had told me with a mischievous grin that her mouth still worked well. I was lying back to enjoy her talented lips when I noticed that the wall seemed to have grown eyes.

  “What the fuck?” I yelled and shot up in bed.

  Nika erupted from beneath the blanket, hair disheveled, and whipped her head around.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Look!” I said and pointed at the big eyes floating by the wall. I looked closer and thought I recognized the brown orbs. “Little Dude? Is that you?”

  The baby suddenly appeared and jumped on my head. He laughed his little ass off, and his mother joined in.

  “What a clever goblin baby you are!” she said with delight.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked as he pulled on my ears and wrestled me around. “How did he do that?”

  “Goblins are great at hiding,” said Nika. “And it seems our baby is a master at it. Did you see how his skin changed?”

  “Hey, baby, can you do that again?” I asked.

  He scampered off me, jumped off the bed, and then he disappeared like some sort of magician. My eyes darted all over the room looking for him, but then I saw one of the chairs move like someone had bumped into it. I looked closer, and saw a strange light disturbance, kind of like the Predator from the movies when he was in invisible mode.

  “Holy shit,” was all I could say.

  “Isn’t he clever?” Nika gasped.

  “I’ll say, and now I think we need a bedroom with a door on it.”

  The baby used his stealth power to follow me all over the property, even when I told him not to. I couldn’t even take a shit without thinking he was hiding in invisible mode and watching me.

  As he grew stronger, the baby began to be a big help. He could already hold a hammer, and he gladly helped me on the barn roof to nail down the shingles.

  Once the barn was done, I took him out into the field to draw up stones with the oxen and the plow. I wanted to build a wall around the homestead, not the entire property, but the house and barn at least. We hadn’t been troubled by humans, monsters, or wild animals, but I knew that sooner or later trouble would come for us. Now I had not only myself and Nika to worry about, but a baby as well. Of course, Little Dude wasn’t like most babies,, and he was already surprisingly strong, but he was still little.

  And it was a father’s job to protect his family.

  I had never understood what it meant to be a father, and I guess no one can really get it until they have children of their own. I knew that parents worried, but I never understood how much they worried or why. Little Dude pretty much had free reign over the property and would disappear for hours on end. It drove me nuts, but Nika didn’t seem to mind one bit. Usually I could find him by looking for the puppies though. They followed him around like little shadows, and their noses helped them find him even when he was invisible.

  Nika was already talking about having more kids, and I welcomed the idea. If the other goblin babies grew as fast as their big brother, we could have a dozen of them within a year.

  Of course, I’d have to worry about feeding all of them.

  The baby already ate a shitload of food every day. I watched him one night wolf down six big trout, a brick of cheese, and seven potatoes. I had no idea where he put it, but he sure stunk up the outhouse with his monster shits.

  As our family grew, so too would our homestead. Nika talked about how we would one day live in a castle there on the ridge, how I would conquer the world with my army of children, and how we would take everyone’s loot. I had thought her talk fanciful when she first spoke about it, but as the baby grew I realized that soon he would be able to do the work of a grown man. He was already half as strong as one and getting stronger by the day.

  With more kids there would be more mouths to feed and more to worry about, but it sounded like a hell of a good time too. We would really be able to build the place up with more help, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of having a ton of kids.

  But to have a ton of kids, I would need a lot of wives.

  “Monster wives,” Nika said when I brought the subject up with her. “They are the best.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Our first baby is really good at hiding,” Nikka answered as she nodded her head. “He has special magic that he got from you, Ken Jewell. Other monster women will give you other babies with powers. It will be different with each species! Think of all the power you will have with an army of your magical monster children! We will take everyone’s loot and rule the world. You will like it. You will see.”

  “If you say so,” I laughed. The idea of becoming a king had seemed absurd in the beginning, but I was beginning to warm up to the idea.

  “I don’t say so, Ken Jewell,” Nika said as she gave me her super-cute, but also kind of sexy-crazy grin. “I know so. I’m a clever goblin queen, and you are a clever goblin king. We will most definitely rule this world. You need to get more wives and more babies. You should do that soon.”

  Chapter 12

  Two weeks after the baby was born, I brought him out to the eastern section of the property to help with a defensive wall. Nika had said that monsters loved to raid at night, and it was only a matter of time before more human hunters or loggers came through here, so I needed something to slow down an invasion.

  The wall needed to be at least nine feet high, with battlements that could be walked along and patrolled, and that meant a lot of wood. I had cleared out the small forest of pine on the other side of the river, and so the logging operation had moved to the east.

  The baby was nowhere near the size of a baby by then. He looked more like he was seven years old than two weeks, and he ate like a full grown man. The kid was strong too, much stronger than his three foot frame suggested. He looked like a baby Hulk, and I was beginning to hope that he would pick it as a name. In an attempt to steer him in that direction, I had been saying the word whenever it could be used in conversation, and I’d been telling him bedtime stories set in the Marvel Universe, but he hadn’t been very interested in them.

  I had just felled a tree, and the little green dude had scampered over to offer me a drink of water. He was perceptive like that and always seemed to know what I was thinking.

  “Thanks,” I told him, and then I pointed at a saw. “Can you grab me that saw? I’m tired of swinging the axe, and I need to take the branches off.”

  He glanced at the saw and looked back at me with a big smile.

  “Please,” I said, unsure of what he was waiting for.

  “Sawsaw?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Littl
e Dude. It's called a saw. Good job, you learned a new word.”

  He leapt off the wagon he had been sitting on, scampered over to the saw, and grabbed it.

  “Sawsaw,” he said as he handed it to me.

  “Thanks, buddy.” I took it and focused on the cut I had to make, but he tapped my shoulder.

  “Dadda,” he said and smiled, then he pointed at himself. “Sawsaw.”

  “Sawsaw?” I said. “No, this is a saw.”

  “Sawsaw, Dadda,” he said as he pointed at himself and then toward me. Then I realized what he meant.

  “Oh, you want your name to be Sawsaw?”

  “Sawsaw!” he cheered and beat his fists on his chest like a great ape.

  “Alright then, Sawsaw it is,” I said with a chuckle. “You should go tell your mother your new name.”

  “Momma!” he yelled and tore ass toward the house.

  Nika came out a few minutes later and rushed over to me.

  “He named himself,” she told me.

  “I know. I asked him to hand me the saw, and I guess he liked the sound of the word.”

  “I knew it was going to either be that or Poopoo,” she said with a big smile.

  “Well,” I said with a laugh. “I’m glad he settled on Sawsaw.”

  “Sawsaw!” the little goblin yelled triumphantly.

  That night, there was a meteor shower unlike anything I had ever seen back on Earth. Sawsaw had been the first to notice it while he sat staring out the window like he often did at night.

  We all went outside and sat on the ridge beside our house to watch the meteor shower. Nika brought out a blanket and a basket of snacks, and we had a midnight picnic as meteors streaked across the sky.

  “On Earth,” I told them both, “we wish upon the first star that we see at night.”

  “Do the wishes come true?” Nika asked.

  I didn’t want to be a buzzkill, so I said, “sometimes.”